R.I.C.E.

Stepped on a nail. Went right through my toe. Didn't know what was going on for a second, then looked down and saw that a nail had gone through my toe. It took a lot more than I thought to pull the nail out of my toe. To feel the nail exiting my toe. Like trying to scoop ice cream that's too cold or trying to pick up a rock and finding out that it's actually the tip of a boulder. I heard a woman talking about a show on TV. She said that a girl had scratched her eyeball so hard she'd gone blind. This girl had a condition where she couldn't feel pain. She didn't know she was hurting herself. I feel pain, in my toe and in my stomach and in my head. I feel pain in my back and in my leg. I worry about infection. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. Sometimes, I think about Tony and the shock of it all.

A bullet. Curt standing there in front of me laughing for a bit. Not knowing what is going on for a second, putting my fingers to a hole in my chest and finding it warm with blood. Already a little lake of myself leaving me. Thinking, this can't be good and falling back into darkness and brush, gravel and grass, feeling the warmth leaving my fingertips first and trying to grab a rock or something, and finding that grabbing is already something of the past. To feel the breath exiting my body. And to think, I didn't know I was going to hurt this much, to feel this pain. Feeling pain in my toe and in my stomach and in my head. Feeling pain in my back and in my leg. Worrying, hopelessly, about infection. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. Thinking, maybe, of Curt, and the last joke he told. And how it was so bad, it was good.