Pain sliced through me - - numb fingers & toes, electrical nerve slices ripping at my legs. Somehow the base of my neck was shockingly able to shoot cannon bullets into my brain, shards of glass-like torment lacing my eyes, forehead, skull, and filtering into my ears with exquisite ringing.
Such variations of sharp and dull agonies attacking from all directions - - as in my dreams of ambushing zombies - - biting into my flesh, gnawing at my ocular bones until blinding tears salt my skin.
And then, relief was found in the primal posture -the first pose we all make - the fetal position but with my hands clamped tightly over my eyes. There is an innocence in hiding from the face of pain. A type of purity and freedom, if only the freedom to extract and compare this to past experiences and to find cooling relief from the stinging light of day.
"Where had all of this come from?" As if I didn't know.
No. In the quiet darkness behind my hands came a memory. I had these very same life-threatening stages into stupor before. This was traumatic head injury. It must have happened during my fall the prior day.
With this knowledge I came to know that I would, more than likely, not sucomb to the grave, but would in fact endure. And so I cried again.
-Beverly Van Pelt, April 26, 2016
In response to the many comments:
Everything I write has some basis in truth, even if it's about a Garden Gnome, and this was no exception.
Yep. This has been my day. It never occurred to me that my fall yesterday would turn into anything, least of all the slow, never-ending increase in pain, sensitivity to light, ringing in the ears, misspoken names, tears, and feelings of dread.
I managed the distress at work but once home for the evening, it became clear that I had to get ahead of the pain.
Tomorrow is another day.