i like to think that i created a remarkable piece of incidental promenade theatre today. if you'd followed me around today you would have been taken on a pretty exciting thrill-ride of a journey with ups and downs and allsorts.
if today was a film, it would have begun with the cliche 'waking up as the opening credits roll' scene, peaked with an early crescendo and then finishing with a long drawn out ending.
like this:
fade into a man in bed. beside him a futuristic alarm clock quietly whispers radio 4. some news report about the americans and iraq and such. the man rises and makes his way through the shit, shower and shave rituals. he is awake, but only just. the house is otherwise empty. a quiet dawn breaks over a cold, wet and windy day.
cut to a shiny bike skimming through busy streets. it is freshly cleaned and waxed. the engine note sounds like birdsong after the expensive service it had three days hence. the man looks dashing in leathers. he whistles within his helmet.
throughout london the masses make their way to work. today is the day oyster cards got an artistic makeover. a new series of doctor who crouches just beyond the horizon.
the man takes his newly found route. turning right and taking the leafy residential street round the back of islington. it saves 10 minutes on his old route. more time in bed, now he can get up and be at work in 50 minutes. down the leafy street he travels, magestic in his poise on the bike. what sunlight there is glints of the shiny paint and mirrored chrome. then the camera slows to bullet time. frame by frame, the bike slips from beneath the man. a blur of metal and leather, shrinking in height and becoming a speeding pancake, hurling along the tarmac ribbon, challenging einsteinian theory.
moments flash through the eyes of the man. thoughts spin through his spinning head. images turn. the rolling sky, the wet tarmac, the shiny green paint sliding along behing his somersaulting marrionette frame. why haven't i stopped rolling yet? but he does. later the paramedic says 40 metres. the bike did 60.
that pov camera shot looking up at a circle of disbelieving faces. rubber-coated hands feeling for spinal damage, pearlescent finger guaging focus, big-ben ringing in ears, swearing. then the pain. like no other. the man's been heartbroken, but this is what physical, unending, broken, deep, pain feels like. like damage. scream.
edgar wright directs a whirling of blue flashing lights, beep, a speeding flourescant van, beep, contrast lost as gas is inhaled and the pain falls outwards, replaced by a hot air balloon in the man's brain. beep, a wheelchair ride, some long medical words, more drugs, steady thumping, "we think your knee might be broken," radiology, "and your thumb," a woman accidentally trips over the man's ankle sending glass shards up his leg.
waiting.
thump. thump. thump. thump.
waiting.
thump.
the drugs wear off. thump turns to THUMP.
waiting.
generic hospital scenes, dressing the wounds, splinting the breaks. at least his knee isn't broken after all. he struggles to form an approximation of a walk. it's barely a hobble. but it carries him to the underground, then home. a five minute walk takes 45, but at least he's now at home, writing his blog. he could've died today. not an exaggerated 'ooh i could've died,' but
i am lucky to be alive.
all it would've taken was an oncoming car, a kerb, a spine wrapped round a lampost...
i am lucky to be alive.
that's all i can write today. my drug-fuelled grammar is bad. i'm tired and my knees hurt like proffessional torture. i'm not even gonna start on my hand.
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