“Ah, fuck!”

Her feet skitter to a stop. As much as she thought she avoided that bush, the pain in her leg suggests otherwise. She was always such a fast walker, and clumsy to boot. Random injuries along the way had become almost like a sixth sense of walking.

The road at her side is thick with speeding cars, but even in the busiest section downtown, she expects few pedestrians. Hers is the kind of small, middle-of-nowhere town where you could get away with ambling along, absentmindedly taking up the whole sidewalk. She briefly considers just dropping down onto the concrete but thinks better of it and instead, hobbles a few steps to a bench where she can safely assess the damage. 

A deep, red scratch crosses the right side of her shin, starting to dribble. She turns a step behind her to find the culprit — one in a row of monstrous spike bushes someone deemed appropriate to adorn a sidewalk. 

Flinging her shoulder bag in front of her chest, she rifles through and pulls out a ziplock with a red cross in colored masking tape on the front. 

“Starbucks napkins, check,” she tells herself, finding the signature brown tissue paper. The best for absorbency, as she has learned from experience. She always justifies a quick stop-in to the coffee chain when she passes, if not for coffee, at least to refill her medical kit. 

She digs deep in the freezer-sized bag and pulls out a small spray bottle of liquid.

“Lemon juice solution, check,” she says, spraying the cut. She folds the napkin and wipes before applying one more spray. Then, spraying her fingers and shaking off the juice, she pulls out a tiny bag of onion wedges. 

“Band-aids, check,” she continues, even though the joke has gotten tired. Her fingers slip the skin off a wedge of onion, and stretch it out longer than the cut on her leg. “Careful, now,” she tells herself as her hands lower to place the onion skin over the cut and pat it flat.

“There,” she says, rising and admiring her own work. Her mouth scrunches to the side. “I wonder though…” Again, she flings her shoulder bag forward and pulls out her cell phone.

“Google, what are some natural remedies to fight infection?”

she asks the phone, and it beeps to register the question received. “Maybe I can pick something up while I’m out,” she says, then reads: “Garlic, honey, ginger, oregano…” Her voice trails off as she adds the items to her shopping list. 

She looks down at her leg. “Hmm, maybe walking isn’t the best idea.” 

The nearest natural food store is just outside of town. Her plan was to walk the whole three kilometers there. That is, until a monster bush attacked her before she even got halfway there. 

“I suppose it’s best for me to get back home as soon as possible so I can clean this thing,” she adds, pulling up the Uber application on her phone.

Javier arrives within minutes. She gets into his car, absently mumbling, “Mm-hmm,” when he confirms her name. The glow from her phone illuminates her face. Her thumb scrolls through different articles. 

She searches for the possible causes of swollen glands and a few nights in a row of restless sleep. Thanks to her “aspiring artist” insurance, as she always calls it, only Dr. Google accepts her payments. And while visits might come with the homework of ruling out Grave’s disease or dengue, at least she can afford it.

Suddenly, the car jerks to the right. Her cell phone slips from her hands and smashes into the opposite window.

The next three things seem to happen in slow motion: Javier’s mouth stretching into a scream, the deer in the middle of the road staring back at them, and the corner of their spinning car clipping a guard rail. 

Then the world disappears.

When she opens her eyes again, she is upside down. The car around her is a crumpled skeleton of its former self. Broken shards of window pane cut into her skin. Her fingers find the release on her seatbelt, and her body plummets onto the upturned roof. 

An icy pain shoots up her arm. She screams.

“OK, it’s OK. I can do this,” she says, searching the rubble for her cell phone. In the front, Javier’s body is more crumpled than the car. She averts her gaze, ignoring the fact that his head looked like it was missing. In the rubble beside her, the glint of a rainbow-colored cell phone case catches her eye.

“Oh, thank God!” she says, palming the phone and crawling through the open window. Glass shards cut at her knees, but she can’t feel them. She can hardly feel anything. 

She shuffles forward, unsure where she is or where to go for help. The rubble tinkles and crunches between the ground and her feet. When the surface softens and sounds shift to grass and dried leaves, she stops. Lifting her hand, she raises her cell phone to her face.

“Hey Google, how do I treat glass wounds?”

she asks. Her voice stutters through the pain. 

The cell phone, however, remains silent.

She asks again. “Google, how do I—” Then she sees it. “No coverage?!” 

Her body deflates as the words leave her mouth. She lifts her arm as her legs collapse beneath her. She can see them covered in blood; feels the cool drip of it down her skin. The empty road is silent and fills her with dread. 

“No, come on. Focus! I can do this!” 

She rises onto her elbows. Then, her knees. Her palms push up against the ground, and she musters the strength to pull herself up to stand. 

Taking the hem of her shirt in her mouth, her teeth clamp down on the fabric and pull. It takes three painful attempts to fully rip it, and she ties the torn strips around her bleeding wounds. The small surge of pride she feels as the blood flow slows to a less terrifying speed drives her to continue on. 

Unable to remember how to get to the natural food store, she takes the main road back into town. She vaguely remembers a large brick building right at its edge before crossing beyond the limits. Unsure exactly what it is or why, she thinks that something about the building will be able to help.

With what strength she has left, she throws her right arm into the air, circling her phone like an antennae. 

Nothing.

She shuffles on. And on. For what seems like forever.

Her body temperature drops. The air feels colder. Her arms and legs are red with fresh blood. By the time she sees the large brick building on the horizon, her vision has already begun to blur. 

But she does see it. So, she starts to run. It grows larger. She runs faster.

The pain courses through her body, but she runs on. Her last energies push their limits, explode through her limbs, and send them flying through the air, back and forth, to keep her moving. Only once she arrives close enough to read the lettering outside the building does she finally slow down.

“Hospital.”

“I knew I would find help here, but,” Sse laughs despite her condition. “of all places…” Her head drops and she catches her breath, braces her bloody hands on her bloody knees. Her whole body shakes with either delirium or over the irony. 

Then, she steps through the automatic glass doors.

“Hello, can we– Oh, my goodness! Ma’am! Ma’am, are you OK? What happened to you?! Nurse! Nurse, get a wheelchair!”

“No, no,” she mumbles, lifting a limp hand at the emergency room attendant. “I need help!” 

Three hospital nurses surround her, offering bandages and trying to goad her into the chair.  

But she knows better. She swats them away. 

“Not that help! I don’t have insurance. I just…” she gasps, forcing the air through her lungs. She lifts the cellphone in her hands. The screen is open to a loading Google page with the prompt, “Home remedies for an automobile accident” typed in the search bar.

“I just need to connect to your WiFi.” She passes out.

End