As I Rode from Perdition

I have never hated anybody in life. And, people say, that when you near death, you always find it in yourself to forgive. But I know now, that I don’t care. I feel vindictive. I want to hurt the people who hurt me that day. I find it odd that barring the importance of the helmet, this feeling of hatred for some selected people is all that the accident taught me.

I keep running it in my head over and over again. It seems to me that shock has robbed me of the most important second of my life.

Everything was going perfectly that day.

I remember turning to look for my cap. I remember turning back to say that I had spotted it.

I remember knowing that I was in the process of an accident. I remember not being scared, just confused. Falling felt almost comfortable. Time dilated as I felt every second of the swing as the bike began its side wards descent. I knew I wasn’t dying, my life didn’t flash before me. I think I let go of the bike and held her for a second. She wouldn’t let the handles go. All rationality required letting go of the swiftly skidding bike. I think I remember jumping off. Years of sports had harnessed my reflexes. I should have rolled and then skidded over to the middle of the road if my wounds are to be trusted. I remember looking over while skidding. The bike was on top of her as she skid on the road as well, headfirst. I remember thinking about her helmet. I remember knowing that I didn’t have one. I had to save my face. Almost instantly I pulled my head, with all my weight on my right hand and knee. I remember scraping against gravel and hot road as I came to a stop. I remember breathing in dust and tasting salty stones.

I saw the sunglasses my dad had gifted me. I remember wanting to cry. I couldn’t reach for them just yet. I looked back and saw her head exposed to oncoming traffic. Instinctively, I reached out and pulled her head aside. I felt stupid as people started to crowd. I wanted them all to go away. I didn’t feel hurt.
Her helmet was cracked in two like a flimsy egg shell. She was bleeding from her forehead. The sight of blood jerked me back to reality. There wasn’t any water to clean the wound. I remember thanking the helmet in my mind. Surprisingly I didn’t think of god or family. I remembered having no first aid for the first time in my life. I wanted to cry again. She kept looking at me. It was just the two of us there. Everybody else was silent noise. I knew I needed to say something to snap her out of her shock but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.
I think I smiled. I don’t know why I smiled, but I knew that she would understand what I wanted to convey. She smiled back.

I didn’t know if I was hurt. Actually, I don’t remember feeling anything at that instant. I was just brazenly calm. Somehow, I remembered first aid checks. I asked her to move her hands and feet, to spot prospective bone injury, doing the same myself. Everything seemed to be functional.

I remember sitting outside someone’s home sipping plain soda. I remember hating the taste, but it was cold and I desperately needed to do something with my hands. I focused on the taste as it washed down the mud from my mouth. I faced away from her.
As I sat alone in some idiosyncratic peace, the memories flooded me with pure fear. I relived the incident again and again. I could feel my control giving up, as tears started pouring out. Fear is my only way of describing my state.

I saw her head, dragging against the ground with such force that only tatters of the helmet remained. Every time I saw the helmet, I feared for my life. All that while, my reflexes were the only grace that saved my life that day. Paranoia soon set in. I could feel the panic of the on coming shock attack. I had never been in shock. I faced away from everyone.

At that instant, my right hand decided to go numb. I couldn’t flex it with out excruciating pain. It exaggerated the panic. I started to weep like a baby for the fear of losing my right arm. My knee wound started becoming septic, as my knee revolted in pain. I hadn’t felt so much pain ever before. I could feel my whole face wet with tears. I needed comfort. Even amidst my best friends, I longed for another kind of comfort all together. I needed some one to hold me and hug me. I wanted to bawl without shame. I wanted everybody to know I was hurt and come to my aid. I was alone and afraid. I remember pitying myself. I couldn’t fathom how or why I was thinking about such mundane things. I wanted to snap out of it, but it felt too comfortable just thinking about the prospect of the men I loved being around at that instant.

Then I remember looking at my hand. I was moving my fingers and twitching my shoulders unknowingly. I wasn’t paralyzed. I put all my focus on myself. I felt her presence behind me, she was as hurt as I was, but more worried about me. I could feel her eyes on me. I knew she wanted to talk. I wanted to smile at her again. I felt angry at myself.

At that instant I knew something was truly important to me. Maybe it wouldn’t be my life’s motto, but at that moment it was everything I would live by.

I was important.

Here I was broken, and thinking about all the people I wanted around to pamper me, all the people who still didn’t care how close to death I was that day.
In my life, I have always given importance to things I can’t have. I have always run loops behind ideas that have only existed in my head and are in fact miles away from reality. Much of my trauma that day was self inflicted. It wasn’t the shortage of friends it was just the absence of the ones I had wanted there.

Not much of an insight from a near death Experience?!