Saturday, August 27, 2011

MOI

Mrs Rickson is lying in the hallway, her head propped up on pillows.
‘How did you come to be on the floor?’ asks Frank, crouching down beside her like an Indian scout reading the trail in a corny western.
‘What?’
‘My wife’s not got any short term memory,’ says Mr Rickson, leaning in and laying a hand gently on Frank’s shoulder. ‘She’s under the doctors for it – waiting on a scan.’ He withdraws discretely and folds his hands in front of him.
‘I see,’ says Frank. ‘Do you have any pain at the moment, Mrs Rickson? Any new pain?’
She winces and reaches round to the small of her back.
Frank looks up at the husband, who closes his eyes and shakes his head a little.
‘Always has pain there,’ he says. ‘Nothing new. When I saw she was going I helped her down gently. Nothing jarred.’
‘Good,’ says Frank. ‘That’s good. Now – is there anything else I should know about before we move you?’
Mr Rickson leans in and touches Frank on the shoulder again.
‘She has a lot of trouble with that,’ he says, pointing to her leg. ‘She’s had all kinds of work. Pins and whatsits. Operations – you know.’
‘Oh? What happened there, then?’
‘It’s a long story,’ says Mr Rickson, extending his jaw forwards to free it from his starchy collar. ‘She did it the same time as she did her back. We were driving on the motorway.’
‘Ah!’ says Frank. ‘An RTC.’
‘A what you say?’
‘A crash. You had a car crash.’
Mr Rickson frowns.
‘No. No – we were driving on the motorway when Dorothy said she was desperate for the loo. I said to her I said “Can’t you hold it? We’re almost there”, but she said she couldn’t. So I pulled over. Onto the hard shoulder.’
‘Ah. Right. So - you got hit by a car on the hard shoulder.’
‘No.’
‘A trip, was it?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Did she trip when she was getting out of the car?’
‘No. No. She got out of the car, quite safely, and she was looking around for somewhere to go, because as I say, she was desperate. And she saw this bush just a few yards from the car, so she decided to go behind that.’
‘Right.’
‘Except it wasn’t a bush – it was the top of a tree. She fell twenty feet into a gulley, and the fire brigade had to fish her out.’

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, I'm sure I shouldn't laugh... but....

Bear said...

I've rarely felt so guilty about laughing so hard.

How on earth did you both keep a straight face?

MOI indeed...

Spence Kennedy said...

And it's even more diff not to laugh when you know you shouldn't. I developed a bit of a cough and had to excuse myself temporarily ... ;)

Alexia said...

oh I'm so used to feeling sad and almost tearful when I read your posts... this one took me by surprise and had me laughing uproariously!

Spence Kennedy said...

Glad to be able to write something a bit lighter! It does tend towards the tragic - prob too much. I'll try to mix it up a bit more than I have lately :0)

Conundrum said...

A real 'coffee-snort' reading that post, I just didn't see it coming at all.
Good one.

Spence Kennedy said...

Thx, Conundrum. Hope it didn't make too much of a mess...

Crafty Diva said...

That last line was so unexpected, thank you for the laugh. But that poor woman!

Spence Kennedy said...

An awful thing to happen to anyone - but it reminds me of that Woody Allen quote: "Comedy is when someone falls down an open manhole. Tragedy is when it happens to me" :)

Mike said...

You bugger!

I did enjoy that, now I feel guilty.

Spence Kennedy said...

I know, but I just couldn't keep the Bush / Tree Bafflement under my hat (?! - I've only just got up and the coffee hasn't worked yet).

Jo said...

Oh... my! Talk about an unexpected ending!!! I mean, that's horrible, but... what a story!! And such a round-about way of telling it!! How hard was it to keep a straight face?

Spence Kennedy said...

It was v hard to keep a straight face - esp. as he told the story in such a deadpan way, which made it worse, somehow!

jacksofbuxton said...

Like everyone else on here,it's difficult not to laugh at that one.

Spence Kennedy said...

All I can think is her desperate need for the loo meant she ran at the bush and found out too late it was a tree... :/

Unknown said...

Lol that was so funny! Poor lady. Very professional both of you not to burst into laughter! :)

Spence Kennedy said...

I still don't know how we managed to keep a straight face... :/