Brain in motion 

The unexpected movement at the base of the tree was more of a surprise than any of us were prepared for, as the flying stilt began it’s descent, that movement from behind the pine trees wide trunk (we were smaller then), was about to create a catastrophic incident. Well to me catastrophic, to him extremely painful, traumatic and yet highlighted to all of then, or at least in the ongoing berating by parents, family and all over the next few weeks and occasionally raised again at gatherings, highlighted to us the nearness mortality has to a single moment and to the incredibly significant difference a degree or two can make between injury or fatality.

The trigger for the apparent time shift was this simple movement, from stilt flight to tree trunk to body in motion, breaking the stored images retained in our senses. While focused on the flight, something in our peripheral vision recognised something was out of place. As the eyes transmitted the data to the brain, massive calculations occurred. Far faster than any of my previous considered thoughts involving the planning, trajectory and action to put the stilt into flight and rescue the stricken kite.

There was something moving into the path of the descending missile. The arrival of my younger brother (who I mention again now had been told to remain at home and not to attend the park), suddenly changed a funny and exciting attempt at problem resolution into a life-involving critical incident. My brain registered it all in that fraction of a second. Stilt falling earthwards and body walking beneath. My voice was activated as the stilt fell rapidly downwards, practically still vertical (one of my better throws) and the intersecting path was likely to be the very centre of my younger brothers’ head.  

It may have been that by screaming out to him “RHHHHYYYYSSSS!! (Rhys, his actual name) his brain received a critical message to “stoooooooppppp!’ (not that he ever really listened to me) or it may have been the level of panic in my voice, but the way the world works I’m trusting it was the sheer look of terror that must have gripped my facial features, that caused him to momentarily pause and consider the ‘fight or flight’ instinct that resides in us all. There is also the possibility that it was simply his short legs trying to walk through the long grass below the tree that slowed his forward momentum just enough for the falling stilt to miss plunging directly into his head, the results, had that occurred are not beyond any doubt. Instead the stilt fell fractionally forward of his face and in the angle of its motion one squared edge of the timber stilt sliced into the top of his face. His motion still forward causing the stilt to roll over the top of his head like a four foot blade slicing the skin open in a single cut running to the back of his head. If time had slowed for us just before this moment, it came to a dead stop now!

(Continued tomorrow)