The head teacher gestured to Gertrude to sit as she parked herself on her leather wingback chair. The head teacher was the mirror image of the portrait above her desk, a portrait of the head teacher in the exact pose that she was sitting in in person. She steepled her fingers.
“I understand that there was an incident in your physical education class, is that correct?” The answer was most certainly loaded for the head teacher knew exactly what the answer was.
“Yes” Gertrude replied meekly.
“And therefore you understand why you are here?” The head teacher’s questions came from a fully stocked magazine it seemed as she fired them at Gertrude like an assault rifle.
“Yes” Gertrude replied meekly once more, slightly vexed by the indiscretion of the questions.
“Mere moments ago, I received a phone call from the parents of one Tamatha Thompson asking why their daughter had a fractured femur. I was informed that it was you who was the perpetrator” The head teacher rose from her chair and paced towards the window to gaze out at the not so illustrious car park where a group of the older students were wrapping the history teacher’s car in cling film. “You realise that I cannot tolerate students breaking one another’s bones” Gertrude feared that she would be expelled even though she had no intention of breaking anyone’s bones nor did she have any intention of harming another pupil despite her many thoughts to the contrary. The head teacher continued “Though you did indeed carry out the act, Ms. Scanlan has informed me that you did not have the mens rea to do such a thing. She also highlighted that you had performed exceptionally well in the moments prior” Gertrude was somewhat surprised that the burly Ms. Scanlan paid her a compliment considering she had typically shown nothing but contempt to everyone she had the displeasure of teaching. “As such, I fear it would be remiss of me to expel you on such charges considering you did not have any malice aforethought, however, I must take action or the parents will rain fire upon me. Therefore, I am forced to suspend you for one week” Gertrude’s heart sank, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Suspension? A week with no schooling? Any normal student would relish the opportunity, but for Gertrude it was as though the weight of the world had come crashing down upon her shoulders. To add insult to injury, the head teacher continued again “Your parents have been notified”
Gertrude burst into tears and stormed out of the head teacher’s office. An over eager hall monitor made an attempt to stop her but was sent to the floor from Gertrude’s momentum. Gertrude dove into the girls’ bathroom and into a waiting cubicle. She sobbed and sobbed at the thought of not having the pleasure of learning for a whole week. Her woe was so loud that she didn’t hear a troupe of girls entering. They must’ve heard Gertrude’s loud sobs as one of them called out.
“Who else in here?” There was no mistaking Tina’s voice as she kicked the cubicle door. Two of her squadron went into the adjacent cubicles and stood on their respective bowls to peer inside. Revealing them to be Tara and Tallulah. Evidently in Tammy’s absence, Tina had taken control of the clique and recruited another girl to their ranks. Most likely in a move to consolidate her new found power. Tina had kicked open the door by this point and grabbed Gertrude by the hair. Even though Tina was the de-facto leader of the group, she still had to pay respects to their fallen comrade and pummel the living daylights out of the person who inflicted such pain.
“You gon’ get it, nerd” Tina raised her fist and presented it to Gertrude. By all accounts it was a well-manicured fist and had a lovely form, however, Gertrude wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the fist’s finer attributes.
When faced with danger, the very human fight or flight mentality festers. In Gertrude’s case, she chose to fight, which in of itself was unusual but she couldn’t contain the strong desire to beat the living shit out of her attackers. First, she took Tina’s fist and twisted it around her back, flipping her onto the floor. Once on the floor, Gertrude promptly knocked her out with a single punch. At least, she thought she had knocked her out, in reality the punch had shattered Tina’s skull as a pool of blood was swelling out of it. Tara had managed to descend from the toilet bowl to join the fight but just long enough for Gertrude to grab a chunk of her hair and tear it from her, scalp included. Gertrude tossed the scalp and hair combination aside and leapt towards Tallulah, grabbing her by the ankles and yanking her from the toilet bowl with such ferocity that her chin collided with the top of the cubicle sending it ploughing through the wooden cubicle walls. She had only been part of the clique for a couple of hours.
Gertrude’s heart was pounding in her chest, her breaths frantic and hurried as she examined the bloodbath.
“Gertrude” A disembodied voice floated softly through the air and reverberated off of Gertrude’s ear drum. It wasn’t an aggressive voice, it was reassuring and calm, but sadly it had a different effect on Gertrude as she stood with a confused expression plastered on her face. There was nobody else in the room, or so she thought. Confusion subsided as realisation dawned on Gertrude. She had assaulted multiple classmates in a blind fit of rage, their bodies were strewn across the bathroom floor. Tendrils of blood reached out and touched one another forming large pools of blood. It was horrific. Gertrude’s eyes widened at the horror. What had she done? It was as though a red mist had descended on her during the onslaught, she had no recollection of the events prior to the slaughter.
There was only one escape from the massacre, the bathroom window. Gertrude charged forwards and leapt through the frosted glass, cutting herself in the process. The bathroom window looked out upon the bordering forest. She had to flee, she could lose herself among the trees and return to nature, be one with it, the ramifications of her actions should she be caught were unfathomable. And so she bounded into the woodland. The wound was bleeding heavily, leaving small droplets of blood to mark her path, a path that could easily be followed. Gertrude noticed this and instantly knew that it would spell disaster should she be tracked. She immersed herself deeper into the forest, perhaps the long grass would mask her trail. Every few bounds she would turn to see fewer and fewer droplets, edging her closer to disappearing until the droplets were no longer visible to the naked eye. She took a few more bounds deeper into the wood and wept.
There was no controlling the tears as she sat with her back against a mighty fine oak tree. The force of her slamming into the ground had felled the ancient tree.
“Gertrude” The voice returned to her like a certain sexually transmitted disease or a pestering neighbour who was forever without sugar and constantly knocked to request a cup full of the sweet sweet sucrose. Gertrude was in no mood for voices in her head, she thrust her fist towards the source of the voice. Opened her fingers and felt a hard, yet spindly branch of sorts. Her hand was warm, a strange sensation considering the mild climate. Wrenching her hand backwards she noticed that it was redder than usual, slimy even. Within her hand was a fragment of bone.
The spinal cord dropped to the floor as Gertrude pressed further into the wood to be seen no more.
JEROME
Gotta go fast. Gotta go fast.
The firing pistol sounded and echoed across the stadium. The sprinters leapt from their starting blocks and bolted around the track to the roar of the crowd cheering them on. Each sprinter was drenched in sweat by the final turn, their breaths sharp rapid bursts, their muscles quaking as each foot landed. One sprinter took a stride and as his foot returned to the track he twisted it in such a manner that sent him flying into the swarm of other sprinters. There were few who finished the race. One of them came third, one of them came second, would you believe one of them even won the race. But tales about winners are no fun – entitled sods they be.
The unfortunate sprinter lay on the track with several others also in agony surrounding him. He’d messed up, he had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything he ever wanted in one moment, he didn’t capture it, he let it slip away, his mom’s famous spaghetti couldn’t heal a broken ankle.
> Two medics lifted the sprinter onto a stretcher and carried him out of the stadium, the fickle crowd gasped in unison when the calamity unfolded but then cheered moments later for the victor. Nobody was cheering the man in the stretcher. Nobody was even cheering the two medics carrying him away, the people who truly deserve all the cheers a stadium can provide and more.
“Yep, it’s broken alright” the doctor said after prodding the afflicted and gauging the degree of severity based on his screams. The doctor’s screams, not the patient’s as that would be ridiculous. “Wouldn’t be doing any running if I were you, then again, if I suddenly woke up one day and became you then I couldn’t possibly imagine what I’d be doing” the doctor had a point however off topic it was.
“How long, doctor” The sprinter asked.
“Yep, I suppose I would be inspecting certain areas of the anatomy if I suddenly became you one day, and I don’t doubt that I would be exalting that very statement about my discoveries!” This doctor was a bit of a stickler for grammar and punctuation, despite starting every sentence with Yep, as such, because the sprinter failed to include a question mark when speaking to the doctor, he assumed that the sprinter was making a statement.
“When will it be healed?” He tried again.
“Yep, I should think it will heal. Probably about a month, maybe two. Could stretch it to three depending on certain variables”
“What variables?”
“Yep, variables such as sudden drops in atmospheric pressure, putting something down and then immediately forgetting where it is, coffee that’s just a little too hot and burns your lip, narrowly avoiding a bird pooping on your head. You know, variables” The sprinter was beginning to think that this doctor was no real doctor at all but there was an official looking certificate on the wall, admittedly, he couldn’t quite read the inscription as it was in a very elaborate font which had to mean that it was dripping with prestige. Alas, if the font was legible it would read BSc Third Class (Hons) Boardgames. The “doctor” had written his final paper on the optimal techniques needed to pull the funny bone out of the hole without igniting the red flashing nose. It narrowly beat Why It’s Always The Lead Pipe In The Kitchen to the prize of worst thesis to earn a passing grade. The “doctor” couldn’t believe his luck when he was hired as the chief medical advisor of the stadium, clearly the hiring committee had taken a glance at his final paper and saw the words Optimal, Technique and Bone and figured the candidate must be a doctor. When they read the word Funny they took it to mean that he would fit in well with the team.
“Yep, give it a year I’d say”
“But you just said that it would take up to three months”
“Yep, May I ask who the doctor is here?”
“Is it you?” The sprinter questioned the “doctor” and his sanity at the same time.
“Yep, says so right on my badge here”
Deciding that his diagnosis was sufficiently vague and wishy-washy so as to avoid a potential lawsuit further down the line, the “doctor” strode off with his hands on his white coat lapels. As he strode, a heavy set man with muscles the size of the muscles on a strong man came bounding in.
“Oh no, no, no” His voice was quite the conundrum, it didn’t seem like the kind of voice that one would expect from a man of his stature. “How bad is it?”
“Well it’s in a cast isn’t it? Pretty bad, Coach”
“You’ll be up and running in no time though right?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. Take me to a hospital”
“Hospital!? Oh no, no, no it must be pretty bad. Can you walk?”
“What do you think!?” The sprinter was becoming agitated, it was dawning on him that he was going to be out of the racing game for some time. Though, he didn’t feel angry nor upset, he was excited to take a break and come back to racing refreshed and ready for a new challenge. “Bring me that”
The sprinter pointed to a wheelchair and had his coach settle him into it who took him gently in his arms and placed him gingerly on the wheeled contraption. The gentle giant took the sprinter all the way to the hospital bursting through the doors to the emergency room while pushing the wheelchair-bound sprinter in a fashion not too dissimilar to Formula One.
“Is anyone a doctor!?” he bellowed in a hospital.
“Maybe I could help”
“Forgive me, Sir. You’re not the kind of doctor I’m looking for” which was a fair comment to make given the man in question wasn’t a doctor as such but was an employee at the local dock, tours were the helpful stranger’s main source of income which explained why he had a nice image of a boat on his shirt with the word Dock Tour emblazoned on the back.
“What’s the emergency?” An actual doctor enquired.
“I’ve broken my ankle, Doc” Said the sprinter.
“Well, I can see that it is already in a crudely applied cast but it will hold up while you sit down and wait like everyone else”
“I’m sorry Ms Doctor, my mistake Ms Doctor” Coach was blushing at the sight of the female doctor, probably caused by the stethoscope. Stupid, sexy stethoscope.
“For Pete’s sake, Coach wheel me over there” Who Pete was, and presumably still is, has become somewhat of a mystery, likely a maxim coined to avoid making any reference to specific religions in case it causes offence to the plethora of other belief systems floating about.
The coach wheeled the sprinter next to a gentleman with strange fluid oozing out of him.
“Can I get you an orange juice, Jerome?”
“Dammit, Coach you know orange juice gives me acid reflux. Get me an apple juice” Despite his big muscles, some might call them the size of a muscular man’s muscles, the coach was of the meek variety, he cared for his athletes for sure, but to the point where they would take advantage.
Coach returned with the carton and handed it to Jerome.
“Sorry, Coach. This ankle, that race. It’s all getting to me you know”
“’Aint nothing but a thing, Jerome. I understand” Coach’s cheeks began to blush, indicating that the doctor was near.
“Jerome? You may come with me”
Coach wheeled Jerome into a small room with an abundance of medical apparatus. The doctor made Jerome sit on the examining chair, surprisingly comfortable, and prepped the x-ray machine.
“I’ll level with you, Sir. It is indeed broken” The doctor raised the x-ray scan towards the light and pointed at a clear fracture with her pen. Jerome was surprisingly relieved to hear that, as he was sipping on his apple juice he thought of all the free time he’d have to see his daughter maybe even fix things with her mother.
“Providing you don’t put any additional strain on it, it should heal in six weeks. But I advise you not to resume training until at least two and a half months and even then it should be limited to light jogging. I’m sure your coach knows best”
“Thank you, Doctor” Coach and Jerome said in unison.
“I’ll put you in a better cast, this one looks like papier-maché, and then you’re free to go. Return tomorrow for further monitoring”
Once the cast was applied, Jerome was wheeled out of the hospital up to the doors. Coach had to return the wheelchair to the docking station and place the key into the lock of the wheelchair in front to return his coin. It was a peculiar quirk about this hospital but at least nurses didn’t have to pay for parking.
"Don’t you worry, Jerome. We’ll get you back on that track in no time! My momma’s got an old family recipe passed down from her momma and her momma’s momma and her momma’s momma’s great auntie twice removed on her momma’s side for a herbal tea that would fix you right up!”
“Has it ever healed broken bones?”
“Well, my little sister’s husband’s cousin had a nasty headache, he drank the tea, chomped on a couple aspirin and in a couple hours he was all good” The coach had seemingly forgotten the initial question. “I’ll bring some over tomorrow”
“Sure, thanks Coach. Hones
tly, I’m looking forward to some time off” The coach slammed on the brakes causing the car to screech to a halt and the cars behind them to blare their horns.
“Don’t go speaking like that, Jerome, negativity will only hinder the path to recovery” The cars behind were certainly negative, maybe that’s why their cars weren’t recovering from the bumper to bumper collisions.
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