gore and blood
This was Friday:
Waking up from yet another nap. Roz is . . . where? I grope my way out of bed, climb into my shoes, wander out of the door. Groggily I head out to look.
Waking up from yet another nap. Roz is . . . where? I grope my way out of bed, climb into my shoes, wander out of the door. Groggily I head out to look.
Even the tourist board, if there is one, must admit there is a shit problem dogging the streets and sidewalks of Pompeijo - not because dogs roam free, though a few do, but because no one picks up after his. Where there is shit, people that know me well could well tell you - where there is shit, I will step in it. It’s not that I’m not careful - that’s not the problem at all. I am careful! - as you are, until we forget to be.
But here was an alarmingly large mass to have missed: squirrish! - the ordure oozing over the sole to take hold of the instep. A misplaced carefulness that ended badly:
➛ even worse than it began when I stopped to take my shoe off and leaving it outside (tongue hanging out, gagging on the stink), to step into what looked like a hardware store - or a blacksmith’s shop, into the peaceful smell of iron and lubricant - trusting to find some sort of scraper,
➛ when I stepped wrong foot first, sock-foot over the threshold and onto a nail protruding from the floor, then ratcheting the stung foot under me like an awkward flamingo, losing my balance and sprawling - actually thinking, “into a ragged pool of salmon-colored featherism”
➛ but no, rather - onto the wooden floor in a human heap, only first
➛ banging my head on the way down on the spiked knee of a suit of armor standing, battle-axe in hand just inside the door.
➛ even worse than it began when I stopped to take my shoe off and leaving it outside (tongue hanging out, gagging on the stink), to step into what looked like a hardware store - or a blacksmith’s shop, into the peaceful smell of iron and lubricant - trusting to find some sort of scraper,
➛ when I stepped wrong foot first, sock-foot over the threshold and onto a nail protruding from the floor, then ratcheting the stung foot under me like an awkward flamingo, losing my balance and sprawling - actually thinking, “into a ragged pool of salmon-colored featherism”
➛ but no, rather - onto the wooden floor in a human heap, only first
➛ banging my head on the way down on the spiked knee of a suit of armor standing, battle-axe in hand just inside the door.
➛ a crash and another and another, a great racket of collapsing tin. And blood. Mine.
So, I fainted. But, it was not so much, it seems, the blood, that the white-coated pharmacist from next door couldn’t staunch it and wind it up in a turban of gauze, while his unwillingly generous assistant wrestled the shit off my shoe.
The turban was topped, covered, by an enormous fedora borrowed from “the smith.” And I went limping on my way.
So, I fainted. But, it was not so much, it seems, the blood, that the white-coated pharmacist from next door couldn’t staunch it and wind it up in a turban of gauze, while his unwillingly generous assistant wrestled the shit off my shoe.
The turban was topped, covered, by an enormous fedora borrowed from “the smith.” And I went limping on my way.
On my way back. To the hotel.
Why limping, if it was my head that was injured? Because the best assistant of the best pharmacist in the Land of Nodia (Kristovia) can’t . . . . A whiff of shit still clung to the one shoe; it needed to be dragged along the pavement.
Tural offered apologies - I thought on behalf of the city. Apparently, he didn’t have to see my bandaged head to know what had happened - less than two blocks away.
“A tragedy, sir,” he said. An overstatement, I thought, but I was more than ready to accept regrets on behalf of the dog-owners of the city. But he went on:
“You have not read [reed], I don’t think. Your SenatorJohnMcCain [one word] die. A brave man but not enough to stand up to war. He never meet one he not want to join in.”
I nodded.
“I have phone call for you,” Tural went on. “You answer?” putting the instrument on the counter, shining black Bakelite. “If so, just pick up.”
08.29.18
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