Читать книгу Promiscuous Unbound - Bex Brian - Страница 12

They are all looking at me. Up? Down? I wish they would decide. Dr. Ricard has his hand resting lightly on my arm. He is the boss of this particular construction site; no hard hat, though. They are very worried, and are trying, without much success, to explain the pain. One spreads his arms, one widens her eyes, one breathes through her nose like a horse. But the leg has to be lowered sooner or later. My once red toenails are now just crimson tips. Sonia is getting quite a kick out of this and wants to know if I will faint.

“Probably.”

Dr. Ricard’s soft, dry hand must be picking up the low sonar of my frayed nerves because he has decided, for today at least, they’ll only lower the harness an inch or two.

“Bien?” he asks.

“Bueno,” I say.

Marcel comes forward. There are two release points. They must be loosened at the same time. Military precision is required. We all murmur. It’s very interesting. My doctor mans one knob, Marcel the other. On three.

“What happened?”

“You fainted.” Sonia smiles.

We are alone, it’s dark, so I must have been out for a long time. I have a new perspective. My foot no longer obscures the bathroom door, no longer cuts the TV in half. The room seems big, wide and open.

“Did I scream first?”

“You said, ‘Holy fucking Jesus Christ.’ And the nurse with the fat ankles?”

“Yes.”

“She crossed herself. The doctor yelled at her and told her to give you a morphine shot.”

“Sounds exciting.”

Sonia shrugs. “The refugee, she came by to look at you.”

“She did?”

“Sure, lots of people did. You are the famous American.”

“Famous for what?”

“Being American.”

“Well, that was easy,” I say, noticing that someone has clipped off my crimson toenail tips. “It’s unnerving to think that these people only come to look at me when I am passed out.”

“The sound of your pain brought them. You were an accident all over again.”

“What did the refugee do when she saw me?”

“She peed on the floor.”