There I was, on the cold tiled floor, bleeding like a burst fire hydrant. The wound was roughly one centimeter in diameter, approximately five centimeters deep. This was a standard bullet wound. The bullet entered through my left side, just under the bottom rib, and lodged itself into my lumbar region and made it home. No exit wound, so that was a problem. “I should’ve never intervened,” I thought to myself. What was I, a normal thirty year old man with no experience in hand-to-hand combat whatsoever, thinking, trying to take down a supermarket robber? I brought my fists and my foolishness to a gunfight. I must’ve watched too many movies to think it would work.
I tried jumping the masked guy from behind. And I was met with a bullet from his glock. I dropped to the floor, while the robber bolted out of the supermarket with the little the cashier gave him at gunpoint. At first, it didn’t hurt. I gave it a second, and there it was. Searing pain hijacked my abdomen. Blood was spewing from the bullet wound. I could almost feel the resistance to blood flow caused by the bullet, and the diversion of the former caused by the latter.
Everyone else in the supermarket ran to me, except some two guys who I guessed could not stand the sight of blood. The gag they had shortly after seeing my condition gave it away. The ones who came to help lay me down on my back, and placed a gigantic pack of marshmallows under my head. “Is there a doctor with us here!” one of the employees shouted as others frantically looked for any supplies they could find to help patch me up. Unfortunately, none was in the midst. Someone called 911, and others were searching on ways of handling bullet wounds on Google.
There was so much blood, and it was just three minutes. I had leaked a ton of it, and I was feeling woozy. The blood flew out of and over my body in a warm stream. I could feel the blood I had lost start to thicken in an attempt to clot. Someone managed to get a first aid kit and some cotton bundles. The cotton was pressed over the wound to suppress the bleed rate as it soaked up the crimson flow. It was getting colder and colder, because I could feel the cold floor get warmer and warmer. I was struck with a headache, and my thinking was compromised by the lack of sufficient oxygen absorbed by the brain. Every breath I took gave birth to a pulse of pain shooting through my abdomen and legs, until a time I could not feel my legs.
Some guy had cut open my shirt with a pair of scissors to expose my wound. Another guy had medical gloves on, and a scalpel and forceps in hand, ready to operate by the guidance of the internet. One of the four ladies in the store was talking to me, trying to keep me conscious. Apparently, I wasn’t going to make it to the hospital alive. They might as well have taken my cadaver to the morgue instead. They had to do something quick. As the sterilized blade was being prepped for incision, I started feeling drowsy. I couldn’t recall if they shot some sort of anaesthetic in me before the makeshift surgery. But the lady kept urging me to stay awake, so I knew that drugs didn’t cause it. My skin got pale, and my body got stiffer. I’d lost too much blood, maybe a third of my reserve. When the scalpel pierced my skin, I couldn’t feel it. Well, there went my skin sensitivity.
The drowsiness got stronger. The lady got louder. “Stay awake, you hear me? Don’t fall asleep! We almost have the bullet out!” She kept repeating this as the operation kept going. At some point in time, I didn’t know what was going on. My brain cells were dying. I saw people lurking above me, and didn’t know what to make of it. These random memories kept cascading through my mind. Ah, yes, my life was flashing before my eyes. This phenomenon was probably the brain cells ejecting their stored data before they die. One last stint in their final moments. As both past and present fleeted through my slipping mind, I couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. Everything was like a dream, and it made sense because I was sleepy. So I uttered these words in submission, “I’m so sleepy. Let me sleep. Let me dream in peace. Just for a while.” Then I could hear muffled voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The voices seemed to be stretching further and further from me, until they were no more.
And so, I stopped struggling. I stopped fighting. I closed my eyes, for I wanted to sleep so much. I let go in a misplaced sense of joy, for I could now sleep in peace. And just like that…
Chronic Artistry 