It was a surreal moment, hurriedly making my way to the cloakrooms while staring into the little pool of blood my cradling hands were struggling to contain.
The stream - waterfall - filling the pool came from a small cut a nanometre below my bottom lip.
The product of kids and their tomfoolery that ended with me crashing elbow and headfirst into the hard, deserty-dry grass patch of my primary school's cricket/soccer field.
Just as surreal was when, at some party for said primary school's prefects, I watched my fellow mates coming down the large slide beside the smaller swimming pool and in that panicky way you can only avoid six oncoming bodies, I dived and managed to reduce the ensuing impacts to faint bumps.
As soon as it was safe, I quickly got out of the pool and promptly dived into the adjacent pool of reflection, saying how lucky I was to get out of that one unscathed. Until I realised my left hand was leaving crimson stains on everything it touched.
A fissure leading up to the back of my thumb was the reason... the product of my future girlfriend's best friend's nail. Apparently.
Another dose of surreality comes courtesy of the second I found myself in the somewhat ironic calamity of falling (read pushed) into an ever-romantic rose bush.
The reason I say pushed is because the person who "accidentally bumped into" me is the same guy who threw a cricket bat at my head in a fit of sore loserism.
Anyway, my fall and soft landing was accompanied by the sound of a large vehicle hitting someone. And indeed, as I got up, my view encompassed the alternating images of the skin of my arm giving way to the flow of blood and the inevitable chaos of having the eight-year-old son of my ex-future godparents get hit by a car not even ten metres away.
The product, then, of foolishly agreeing to play soccer with a sore loser; not paying enough attention (on both sides); and, if you're one of them superstitious folks, having your birthday party before your actual birthday has arrived (which is apparently bad luck). Although, this was also the same day my second cousin was born, about four hours before my birthday, and possibly in the very hospital Alex was taken to.
Wow, that's a lot of coincidinks. But that's not really point... in fact, there really isn't any real point. Really.
I was just thinking how lucky I am to be alive, the above examples aren't the best - I could've mentioned the real reason I suffer from chronic backaches or the much-touted story of when the only thing between me and a long fall over the edge of a cliff was a tree (cartoon-style, where I'd say, prior to losing my grip and falling to my death, something like, "If this were a cartoon, the scene would cut away now." - but I decided to stick with a bloody theme.
It's interesting, though, when you look at how easy it was for things go far beyond simple blood...
Had I not put my elbow in front of me, the impact may have broken my neck.
Had I not dived when I did, I may have realised, more than the pinch of slit skin, what it felt like to have a dozen feet hit you in the face at the maximum speed gravity could muster at the time.
Getting cut by a thorn is probably the worst that could come out of my bushy fall, but had the driver braked a second later or Alex done something else, his fate may not involved mere broken bones and flesh wounds (or, to bring this story back to its original self-absorbed motif, we can note how lucky I was that it wasn't my skull breaking the bat in half but a wall).
So, three faint scars (to wit: how many of you realised I had a scar on my face until now?) is all I have to deal with. Just kinda makes me think, that, any time I say something stupid like, "I don't mind if I don't wake up tomorrow. I don't, I don't, I don't."
I should probably be dead by now.
Hey Death! Right here, buddy. *gives Death the middle finger*
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