| MILES
TO GO
The woods are
lovely, dark, and deep, That was New England poet Robert Frost, ladies and gentleman. He's now trading verses with Walt Whitman behind the pearly gates. One morning I came uncomfortably close to meeting the dead poet's society. Here's a way of getting killed: Steer your bike into a pothole which launches you over the handlebars and onto the road, knocking you unconscious, then lie there patiently until a car finishes the job. Last autumn I found myself in hospital after following the above directions, fortunately skipping that last crucial step and giving St. Peter a raincheck. The setting: a rural lane in Ohio, which is one of those United States you occasionally hear about when journalists are reporting from the American heartland and require amber waves of grain in the background. My reason for being in transit: a visit to my sister. My excuse for flying with the greatest of unease: small wheels (it was a folder), darkness insufficiently uncovered by my headlamp, and a pretty damn big hole. Not quite six feet deep. I'm not publishing this posthumously - now that would be something to write home about - because the guardian angel who followed me about a quarter of an hour after my flight was wide awake at the wheel. The first thing I remember is being helped vertical with the question "Do you want me to call an ambulance?" This struck me as absurd at the time. Why on earth did I need one of those? Then again, what was I doing being lifted to my feet by this stranger? And was that my blood on the pavement? Retrograde amnesia strikes again. After being escorted to the passenger seat I held a curious internal dialogue concerning recent events. Something about a light. No voice beckoning me into it. Then blackness. Now unexpected decisions were being demanded of me. An ambulance, of all things. Well, there was the wooziness to consider. Might not be a bad idea to have an MOT. At the hospital they let me keep my bike in the exam room. It was unscathed. Nice for some. I answered the nurse’s questions and my bike sat silent, the defendant. There was a pain chart on the wall. I didn’t really hurt. Just felt a bit out of sorts. But I’m a veteran. This was my hat-trick…. The
first time I’d found myself napping on the pavement came after
a love-tap by a Jersey girl some years ago when I lived on the east
coast. This while a pedestrian, seduced by the green man’s come
hither look. I’m told my eyes danced in their sockets while an
electrical storm raged in my head. It slowly dawned on me just how incredibly lucky I was to still be alive. Us cyclists are apparently hard enough to spot, even in broad (one is often obliged to use ‘broad’ in front of the word) daylight. There I’d been, imitating roadkill in the wee hours. One could have easily forgiven my would-be assassin turned saviour for a deadly lapse in concentration. The worst part was having to call my wife. She’s also a veteran. Oddly enough that hasn’t made much of a dent in her capacity to be wounded by my accidents. Not helping matters was her circumstance of being 4000 miles away and completely helpless to comfort. Long-distance worry is no picnic. After the obligatory CT scan and an all-clear from the medical profession I caught a ride home with my parents, thanking them by throwing up in the car after we pulled into their driveway. Nausea ruled my immediate future. That soon subsided, but for months afterwards vertigo would continue to have its way with me, my dizzy dance partner. No, I hadn’t been wearing a helmet. Still don’t. The way I figure it, my skull was up to the task and passed with flying colours. Admittedly my accident was exactly the sort which best fits a helmet’s job description: slow-moving cyclist bonks himself squarely on the head. No question, it might have saved me the handful of stitches I was awarded as a souvenir. Then again, it could have been a nasty accessory to a twisted neck. Guess I’ll never know. Funny thing was, nobody held my feet over the fire on the helmet question while I was in the States. It was only when I got back to the UK that the doctor at my local surgery took her scalpel to my answer. If it's prescribed for the cycle accident, it should've been for the other two, no? Accidents are equal opportunity destroyers. Those 15 minutes I spent communing with the road were forever lost as I killed time in a dreamless no-man’s land, waiting for a stretcher or a hearse. The earth continued to move underneath me, and would’ve kept right on turning had I slipped the mortal coil. Miles to go before I sleep. January 2006 |
