There was pain everywhere there was so much of it that I didn’t know what to do. I lay with my eyes open. My head was bleeding there was blood on my face. I felt that things were broken. Some of my ribs were broken. My left leg was numb where I was lying on it. I thought that was broken too. I lay still and thought about moving. I was scared to move but I was scared not to. I wondered what had happened.
Slowly I tried to bend my left arm at the elbow. It was trapped under me it was numb but it did move. I felt a great relief. I tried to move my right leg I bent it at the knee and at the ankle and it worked too. It hurt but it worked. Then I did the same with my left leg and my right arm. My left leg was hardest it was still numb and when I moved it a huge fire shot through my knee and up my thigh. I almost screamed. But it moved. I brought my right arm over my chest and placed my palm on the ground and I pushed myself up slowly with my right hand and my left elbow. As I pushed myself up I felt something in my chest give way. On the left side of my chest where I had been lying I felt something shift inside. I nearly threw up I nearly fell back down again and stayed down.
But I stayed up. I stayed up and then I pushed myself further until I had both hands on the ground and then I shifted my right hand back around to my right side and I slowly pushed myself up until I was sitting. The pain in my chest was enormous. Things were moving inside me which should not move I was sure of it. But I stayed up I stayed conscious I stayed alive. After a few minutes of sitting and breathing and willing myself to stay strong I shifted again over onto my right thigh. The pain in my chest was still there things were still moving around in there and now my left leg as well was screaming at me there was a shooting pain all down it and my left knee would not do what I wanted it to. I shifted onto my right thigh and I started to lever myself to my knees. My left knee wouldn’t take any weight so I put all the weight on my right and now I was on all fours.
I turned my head to the left and to the right as far as I could. I felt the muscles or tendons in each side of my neck pulling taut as I did so. I seemed to be in some kind of farmyard. Behind me was a broken-down barn and to my right a wooden five-bar gate through which I could see a track leading down a small valley and out of sight. To my left was a stand of great silent trees huge in the stillness towering over the buildings. In front of me was an old stone house with its door ajar. I breathed heavily and carefully and then using all the strength I had left I started to crawl towards the door.
I could hardly put any weight on my left side at all though my left arm seemed to be working despite the pain. I shuffled like this I shuffled like a broken creature dragging my damaged leg behind me breathing deeply and steadily gritting my teeth moving slowly across the dark yard towards the door. Through the window I could see what looked like the dancing orange glow of a fire. There was no rain it was still and hot like summer though I felt it wasn’t summer. I breathed in and out in and out I got into a rhythm of steady pain and slow movement as I shuffled slowly across the hard ground.
When I reached the door I pushed it open with my head and I crawled into the house like an injured dog. A fire was burning in an iron stove and the place was far too hot. I was thirsty I realised when I saw the fire that I was so thirsty. There was a mug of water next to a bed. I made my way over to it still crawling and I drained it. Then I levered myself up onto the bed limb by limb and I sat on the edge. I sat up as straight as I could which was not very straight because my chest would cry out if I tried to uncurl it.
I felt myself all over with my hands. My head was bleeding there was a long damp cut across my scalp above my left ear but the blood seemed to be slowing. I was wearing a shirt and jumper. I lifted them up to examine my torso. It was so tender that I could barely touch it. All down the left-hand side of my body were great bruises yellow and black. Across my chest running from just above my right nipple down almost to my belly button were five long scratches. The pain was intense but there was no real blood. Slowly I unbuckled my trousers and slid them down my legs. I feared what I would see but I had to look. My left leg was bruised and black and the knee bent at the wrong angle. As I sat I could feel it stiffening. There were scratches all over my legs but again there were no deep wounds.
What had happened? Whatever it was I had been lucky I supposed. I didn’t seem to be dying. I didn’t know what I could or should do with my battered body but sleep was all I wanted now. There was a dirty red sleeping bag on the bed and I crawled into it lay on my back closed my eyes and went into the darkness. I wonder how long I slept for. I don’t know. I think it might have been several days. It was impossible to keep track after a while and in any case I was not trying to. I woke and went back woke and went back the tide was pulsing in and out in and out and in sleep the pain gave me dreams. I saw white stags and white wolves and black trees. I saw an island in a lake I saw the moon over a moor I saw fleets of ships in the sky. I saw a woman staring at me. I knew her though I had never seen her before.
It might have been a few days before I came round properly. It was never clear. I remember the dream that carried me back. There was a great tree standing on a hill there was a light around the tree and it had deep roots. It had great tall branches reaching to the sky twining around each other and its roots went down into the centre of the world where something lived and moved around them. There was a man standing under the tree there was something bright covering his head and he was moving towards me. There were birds around him all around him were strange birds.
I opened my eyes. It was light. Daylight. It was light and it was warm. The fire was out the ashes were cold but the room was hot. I lay there and I concentrated on what I could feel. I adjusted to my body and tried to re-inhabit it.
I was lying on my back in the sleeping bag. I must have been twisting and rolling in my sleep because the bottom of the sleeping bag was wound tightly around my feet and my lower legs. I lay on my back in the heat and I went through every part of my body systematically and examined its state. I started with my feet. I wiggled my toes and twisted my ankles around. They seemed to work as they should. I moved up to my calves I flexed their muscles and they both worked too though the left leg gave me shooting pains. Then the knees. I could bend my right knee, but the left seemed rigid and it felt wrong. There was a flaming arc of pain when I moved it and it would barely bend.
When I turned my attention to my thighs it was the same. I could tighten the muscles in my right thigh but my left thigh sent shooting pains right up into my abdomen when I moved it. Then my hips. I twisted them and they moved on both sides. On the left side I could feel the agony of this movement but the fact that I could feel something felt like a triumph despite the pain. I was alive. I had not died in my sleep I could still move I was not paralysed. I flexed my stomach muscles and the pain in my left side was still intense. All through my abdomen was a dull throbbing ache.
I could bend my neck left and right though I still felt the pulling in the muscles when I did so. I twisted my head to both sides and it moved too. I rolled my shoulders I bent my elbows I curled and uncurled my fingers. It all worked. I opened and closed my eyes. My head ached a throbbing ache and constant. I was so thirsty and now I was hungry as well. It must have been hours maybe days since I’d eaten anything. I needed drink and I needed food and that meant I needed to move from the bed.
I looked around me. I was on a bed up against a wall on one side of what must have been a front room in an old farmhouse. The walls were of grey stone with some peeling paint and the floor was stone too great slabs of it. In the centre of the room was a wooden table and a battered old chair. Up against another wall not far from the front door was the stove and beyond that to one side of a window that looked out into the yard was an old wooden cupboard.