Feeling Without Seeing

Then someone said, “Here’s his schoolbag.” And then I heard them make the comment. “Oh, its one of the Dwyer children.” All I heard then, was the “Ahh”, in unison, from those gathered. Obviously, no further surprises about the incident. We had a small local reputation for accidents (as mentioned in ‘many’ previous blog entries), but obviously, not due to any specific intentional behaviour. We were simply a large family, so accidents were probable. It was also the consequence of the accidents that many people came to know who we were. So once again, there had been a incident and a member of the Dwyer family was down. Bleeding. There I lay, a victim of an accident, this time because of my bicycle (That is the link to what I was talking about, before I went off on this tangent, in case you had forgotten). My father as a further part of the punishment for ‘stealing’ the chocolate marshmallow fish (see blog 7^th November 2012), had taken my bicycle from me, and I was relating an incident about the freedom it gave me. The spiders. So now we are back to where the tangent had gone. The spider’s nest in my school bag, which had been gathered up by a concerned member of the public, after the accident (the school bag, not the spider’s nest). I was obviously still somewhat concussed and tried to ask several other questions or at least to try and tell them something, but apparently I wasn’t making a lot of sense to some people.

The ambulance arrived and the attending medics went about their work professionally. I was still unable to see and as I lay there, passed in and out of consciousness still. The next thing I really recall was lying on the bed in the hospital emergency. There were the sounds of several nurses or doctors moving about the bed. That buzz one hears in a hospital. Swishing of curtains, trundling of carts and trolleys. The walking of soft soled shoes. And, most especially, the soft library like, calm, voices of those attending to the various patients.  I lay there, apparently not urgent. The lack of vision was explained. A nurse arrived a short time later and with a soft sponge and water began to wash my face and to see if my eyes were simply caked with blood. As she softened the dried matter that covered my face, I could feel bits of grit and chips of stone, moving around under my eyelids. I managed to get her to stop. A doctor turned up a short time later and discussed what might be required. Then I heard my mother arrive. The word ‘bustling’ comes to mind. She bustled in and with vocal concerns arrived at the bed. I could see a little out of one eye thanks to the administrations of the nurse. Then my mother asked a question which caused some confusion for all of us. “What are they asking about glasses for? You don’t wear glasses?”

(Continued tomorrow)