Live I Die I Live Again

May 09, 2022 Post a Comment

Being a true and accurate business relationship of the events relating to Peri Blomquist's knee joint, on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018.

Information technology'southward January 23rd. 7:10 a.k.

A loftier, horrible keening begins in my home. A wordless, inhuman scream that reaches past the dimension of the living and pulls me from my sleep. I roll over, ready to bludgeon the alarm clock, but the audio isn't mechanical. It's bestial.

I rise and yank open up the bedchamber door.

"Shut upwards." I tell the cat.

"MMEEOOOOOOUUUUAAAIIIEEE" the cat screams back.

"Right," I say, and slog into the kitchen to feed her.

My eyes lift to the window as I straighten from appeasing the beast, and I see a earth of swirling white on the other side of the glass. Thick fog clogs the streets, obstructing my view of the sidewalk and neighboring buildings.

Neat-o, I think, and stomp dorsum to bed.

Except, once I'k lying down, the fog is all I tin can think about. It reaches into my heed, with crimper tendril fingers and it pokes. It prods.

Get the fuck up, it says,and take a motion-picture show.

I curse at the ceiling and get upwardly. At present I'thousand in a frenzy for no reason. The fog is calling, singing it's siren song, pulling me towards the door. I yank on pants and start the coffee maker while I find my shoes. I catch a chugalug and jam a toothbrush in my mouth. The coffee finishes correct equally I pull my glaze over my shoulders. I take a quick, scalding gulp and leave it on the counter.

"Back in five," I tell the cat.

And then I grab my camera and my phone and my keys, and woosh out the door. My wallet sits on the same counter as my coffee, forgotten.

Jan 26

On the street the fog is like wet wool. It hangs heavy, draped over every rooftop and lamppost. I wander through it, snapping pictures of the itch street and the early on traffic.

I recollect idly well-nigh my coffee, but I'm about at the reservoir, then I continue walking. I detect the water low and frozen, blending in with the white mist and erasing the horizon from view. The fog is swirling and blowing and eating morning time joggers one past one. I follow them more slowly, ambling at my own stride into the milky oblivion.

I have more pictures but they await like nothing. They look like a plaster wall, or the heat decease of the universe.

I'chiliad halfway around the reservoir now. And I know that, up the little path and across the lilliputian back route, is a cemetery. I shift my direction, half unconsciously, the fog pushing at my back, and climb the muddy path. Then I stand on a sidewalk, looking across the petty twenty foot wilderness to the iron fence and the shrouded headstones beyond.

Jump the fucking fence, says the fog,and accept a picture.

What a skilful idea, I think.

I jump the fence.

I wander happily through the graves, taking pictures, following the whispered directions of those whipsy, tendriled fingers cached in my brain. Five minutes after, as I crest a little hill, I see a pickup truck winding down the cemetery path in my management.

Uhoh, says the fog, and I backpedal chop-chop until I'm no longer standing in the open.

I check my telephone, which reads 8:05. The cemetery opens at 8:00, so I'm okay. But the gate (which was not my route in) is more than a five minute walk from where I'k standing. If I'm found, I might be asked how I got all the way to the back of the graveyard so quickly without being seen. At which betoken I might take to explain that I jumped the fence.

Information technology's non illegal, says the fog,only it's sketchy as fuck.

I am dressed in all black, entirely by coincidence. I don't have my wallet or a film ID.

Jump the fucking contend, says the fog.

I turn and get-go quickly back the mode I came, glancing over my shoulder, listening for the pickup. I don'trun exactly, because that would wait even more than suspicious, but I am definitely no longer ambling.

I reach the fence and take two steps faster than the remainder. I put my hands at the tiptop of the contend and button up and jump, swinging my legs over. I swing gracefully down on the other side.

My left foot hits something slick and uneven beneath the leaves. My knee joint twists and gives out correct equally I hear acrisis sound and I slam into the footing.

Jan 24.2

three

Nice, says the fog.

I'g sitting in the leaves, camera cradled against my chest, both hands clamped downwardly around my knee, which is throbbing. Beneath me I can feel a broken branch. I wonder if the sound I heard was my knee or the forest?

"This adventure is over," I tell the fog. "I'one thousand going domicile."

I get upward carefully, prepared to shuffle the mile and a one-half home, but my start step lands me dorsum on the ground.

I can't walk.

Alright, I retrieve.I'll just phone call a Lyft.

I crawl through the mud to the sidewalk and situate myself as well every bit I can. Then I pull out my phone and open the app.

"Update your payment information," the app tells me.

"I can't, I don't have my wallet" I tell the app.

This is a very adieu for taking pictures,says the fog.

I telephone call my dad, who is alarmed to hear I tin can't walk, but happy to assist. He lends me his credit card information, and I plug information technology in and call a ride.

"Seven minutes," says the app.

I wait seven minutes. My phone vibrates and a message appears letting me know my ride has arrived.

I enhance my eyebrows at it, and look up at the very empty road, nada just the fog caressing the bends on either side.

When I check the map, I discover that Lyft has sent my commuter to the nearest address. Which is several hundred anxiety and on the other side of the graveyard from where I am sitting. With my useless knee. That I can't walk on.

"I'll but phone call them," I say. And another message pops up on my phone.

"Your Lyft commuter is hard of hearing," says Lyft. "Please communicate with them but through text."

I wait effectually me, only there are no street signs. No landmarks. I have zippo I can text this poor driver to let them know where I am, considering I've been wandering around in the fog all morning, and I don't know where I am.

I shut the app.

It begins to pelting.

Ha ha, says the fog.

I start to telephone call my boyfriend, then remember he's in Due south Carolina for piece of work. And then I call my best friend instead, who answers the phone, but as she's stepping out of the shower, thinking someone has died. I explicate that no, everyone is alive, only that I have just disrepair my knee escaping from a graveyard I technically didn't need to be escaping from, and am currently sitting on the sidewalk in the rain.

Rachel laughs at me. Then pulls up google maps and pinpoints my full general location based on my description of how I arrived where I am. She drops a pin on the map and sends some other Lyft driver.

"When he gets close, but wave your arms a lot," she tells me.

"I honey y'all. You're a superhero," I say.

Have a picture, says the fog.

I hang up and wait. The rain is starting to hunt the fog away. Eventually, a ruby-red automobile appears around the curve.

I stumble up onto one leg and wave my arms like a bedlamite. The driver slows and pulls up cautiously.

"I'k your Lyft?" he asks.

"Yeah!" I hop across the route on one leg and clamber into the back seat. Mud covered. Sticks in my dress and in my pilus. Soaked to the peel.

"What the fuck happened to yous?" the driver asks.

"I got up early to accept a flick of the fog."

Jan 25

Epilogue

I spend three hours in the ER. I am x-rayed and gently mocked. Chided for not having my wallet. The registration clerk conspicuously thinks I'm a nutcase. The nurse seems to call back I'm a photography hero. The doctor who treats me doesn't even ask what happened, he but blows right in the door of my room and says "I heard the story! Information technology'due south all over the floor. Bear witness me the pictures."

I am diagnosed with a bad knee sprain and told to stop hopping fences. Rachel turns up to accept me home.

"Hope those pictures plough out!" The md shouts after me as I hobble out the door on my new crutches.

Yeah me and y'all both, doc.

Jan 23