Bikeopalypse Now

It's a blur. Gasps and stutters. I'm attempting banter. The paramedics have given me morphine in a nebulizer and I've got morphine running into my blood through a cannula. Morphine is coursing through my veins and I am trussed with a neck brace and every inch of my body is just on the verge of being painful without actually being painful.

I am on a gurney and the world is moving downwards, the crowns of trees migrating towards my feet and out of my field of view.

An ambulance slides down over me as though I am standing and it's been lowered over my head. Things start to jiggle around as we move across the rough ground.

I'm not bothered. I feel good!

It's short trip and my little bubble of bliss is interrupted by the remembrance of reality and I ask after Lyra and a second ambulance has come for her and she's off to the children's hospital. She seems unharmed but is mysteriously - too - quiet. Shocked.

The ambulance slides up again and a hospital slides down over me and before long a ceiling punctuated with metals guides. Machines slide along the guides and people are guiding the machines, they are introducing themselves, and they're very polite, very calm, and I'm very calm right back at them and if I'm honest quite erudite and witty, though I do say so myself. I can't remember a damn thing I said and I don't to my shame remember their names but I'm grateful that they did their jobs efficiently and effectively.

Broken collar is confirmed, plenty of bruising, no other breaks, of for a CAT scan to be sure.

Off for a CAT scan - not had that pleasure before. Metals rings move over me like a scene from Metropolis. I have to hold my breath and it hurts.

Now that the excitement is fading time starts to pass, perhaps I sleep, who knows. The doctor tells me that I have five broken ribs in addition to the broken collarbone, and a punctured lung. I'd just been saying to Eloise how I'd never broken a bone and now I've gone and done six in one fell swoop.

Nicole appears at some point, and I'm glad to see her. Eloise is safe and sound, but upset. Lyra too. Nicole is dealing with her or has dealt with her.

I'm somewhere in the bowels of a hospital, I'm alone and I am broken in many places. How the hell did this come to be.