Sunday, May 16, 2010

Topsy Turvy

I open my eyes to find Ralph frantically tying some sort of cloth around my right shoulder.

I'm groggy.

And in a lot of pain.

The clouds have lifted and moonlight fills the bathroom. I can see Ralph's face very clearly. He's stressed.

I try to turn my head to see what he's doing, when he tells me to stop. "You've lost a lot of blood. Try not to move until I finish fastening this," he says and uses whatever medical training he has to stop the bleeding.

I look over his shoulder at the man who shot me. His lifeless body sits slumped up against the wall in the corner, where I first saw him. Now that there is light in the room, I take a second to make out his features. Old. Withered. Wrinkled. The years have been hard on him. His streaked white hair tells me that he lived a very troubled life.

I take a moment to look into his vacant ice blue eyes. The man is no longer there, just the body that housed him. It's weird when there's no soul left in a body.

I feel Ralph begin to lift me as we make our way out of the bathroom. He's scooped me into his arms; and as I weave in and out of dizziness -- I turn to him and say the only words that come to mind; "Thank you."

As we make our way down the hall towards the stairs, I smell something.

"Ah, shit!" says Ralph as we approach the top of the stairs to see that a fire has started on the bottom floor. I turn my head to look for the candle that I placed in the hallway, but can't see it.

It must have rolled through the railing and landed in the living room...

I start to cough. Ralph places me at the top of the steps and hops down the stairs to check out the situation. He runs back towards the bathroom and returns a moment later with two sopping wet bath towels, which he wraps around both of us.

We make our way down the stairs swiftly. I can hear sirens in the distance.

I have a hard time seeing the extent of the fire, but the smoke is thick. Ralph tells me to breathe through the wet towel. I can feel the heat increase as we come closer to the bottom of the steps.

A moment later we are out the front door, and Ralph lays me on the ground as other Officers approach us.

My heart sinks --

"My laptop!" I say to him and use whatever energy I have left to plead for him to run and get it.

"Don't worry about it," he tells me and tries to keep me from moving so I won't ruin his makeshift tourniquet.

"No!" I say and sit straight up, "You don't understand. I need my laptop!" I tell him and start to cry out of frustration. It's like I'm living one of those nightmares where everything goes wrong and no one will listen. "It's near the bottom of the stairs, before the kitchen," I plead with him. I start to cough quite heavily. I suppose I took in more smoke than I thought I had.

Ralph doesn't argue with me, but takes my wet bath towel from around me and wraps it around himself before turning to run back into the house.

"You owe me," he says as he sprints into the house.

A female officer is now inspecting my wound and calling for medical back up. The sirens are getting closer.

I feel weak again. And nauseous.

And lightheaded...

I fix my eyes on the door to the cottage waiting for Ralph to come back out. The seconds feel like hours. Everything I have been working towards is in that laptop.

A moment later he comes out the door, coughing heavily and empty handed.

"I couldn't see it," he tells me as he whips the blackened towels off of himself.

The sirens are getting closer. The last thing I remember, is hoping that the sirens I hear belong to a firetruck.

As Ralph walks towards me coughing, the world around him becomes topsy turvy.

My eyes roll to the back of my head.

And I pass out.