A moment of inattention -- which by definition resists my attempts to clearly recall it -- and suddenly the angriest, hardest sting was felt in my left index finger. The blade of the rusted table saw had bitten through my skin to the bone with such force that the finger was slapped away, as it were, slapped very hard. In a microsecond the flesh had disappeared and blood was filling in the void. I screamed, angrily. It wasn't the blood or the pain; it was fury at having been stung so mercilessly by an inanimate object, the animal rage that comes with having nerves suddenly, literally, exposed. Had the table saw momentarily slipped off its bearings and leapt at me out of spite? But more than the irrational, darwinian reaction against the saw, I felt rage at my own idiocy. The battle during the wait at the emergency room was not so much to avoid passing out at the sight of my own shredded skin, though to be honest I did avoid looking at it as much as possible, as to avoid replaying the moment of that bite in all of its utter completely avoidable carelessness. It was at least an hour, maybe two, before the second bite, this time by a needle. And it too bit all the way to the bone, but it was a strong, sweet sting that came without any force of impact, and sleep soon followed.
A week ago Jess and I and several of our friends had had a serious talk about euthanasia, and I had mused about how "interesting" it might be to be trapped inside one's own body after a stroke; but after two or three hours of intense bone-pain in only one of my fingers I knew it was all rot, and that should the real thing ever happen to me and simultaneously deprive me of my ability to express it, the animal rage that would follow would surely finish me.
(via BlackBerry)
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