He started with his mouth. He closed his eyes and felt around with his tongue. He winced and inhaled sharply as he slid his gashed tongue slowly up and down, then side to side. The inside was sloshy. But what he thought was saliva, he realized with revulsion, was his own blood. He tried to spit but pain shot through his face, so he simply tilted his head, barely able to tuck his chin to chest, and let it spill out. The blood waterfalled over his lips and down his chin, soaked into the rough carpet of rubble.
Matthew let his jaw to hang open a moment, panting like a dying dog, breathing in the stale, dusty air. When he finally closed it to swallow, he was sickened by the slick of blood and bits of flesh that slid down his throat. Worse yet, with his mouth closed, he discovered he could not breathe through his nose. With effort, he let that thought alone for the moment, still trying to take inventory as slowly, as stolidly, as he possibly could. He wouldn’t panic, not yet. Panic wasn’t an option. He tried to relax, to take hold of the situation. In the meantime, he would just have to breathe through his mouth, although the taste of the air sickened him.
His face, he knew, was badly damaged. He tried to breathe through his nose again and failed. It felt... wrong. He could sense that the bridge wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
Let’s move on, he thought, and reached out with his senses to feel his arms, his hands. His right arm was immobilized, but he thought it was all right. It didn’t seem broken, and he felt no sharp pain, and he could wiggle his fingers all right. But whatever was pressing down on top of him the building the whole fucking building was also pressing down on his shoulder, keeping it immobile. But he could move his hand without pain. He tilted his wrist up and down, twisted it left... then right. All good there. Not so bad, considering, he thought. It’s okay everybody, we’re just a little stuck at the moment.
He tried his left arm next, almost weeping with relief when it moved freely and with ease. He slowly bent his elbow, brought his fingers toward his face. Again, he felt no pain, and he thought it a very good sign, overall, that his arms seemed to be undamaged. The right one, for now, trapped. The other, for now, completely operational.
Feeling more confident, he went back to his face. He gingerly pressed fingers to his nose. He sucked in sharply at the pinch of pain even the gentlest touch caused him. Lightening his touch, he very carefully moved the pad of one finger along the bridge, trying not to panic when he felt the break just below his eye-line. He could feel the swollen knob of gristle, the sharp edge of the broken bone where it shifted at a decided angle. More probing revealed a wide, deep gash running from the break in his nose to just below his left eye. It was sticky to the touch. When he pinched and wiggled the askew tip of his now rather loose nose, it gave sickeningly, moving too easily under his fingers. An internal grating sound of shifting gristle filled his ears when the dislodged pieces rubbed together.
With a deep sigh, he left it alone once more, moved on to his eyes and forehead, pawing at himself like a blind man seeking recognition of a stranger’s face. He found no cuts, no painful spots or anything else terribly out of sorts. He thought it possible that one cheekbone might be broken, but it was too tender and swollen to tell. The skin felt slack under his right eye where it should have felt like a facial bone, and despite the swelling he knew something had been dented permanently. He didn’t want to dwell on it, the thought of his face disfigured not helping his spirits, so he quickly moved probing fingers to his lips.
Praying silently for good news, he pushed two fingers into his mouth.
He immediately felt the jagged, tender edges of two broken teeth along the top left. He felt around some more, touching the tip of each tooth, and was pleased that everything else seemed in its proper place. He next tapped the pad of his swollen tongue and, with some astonishment, realized he’d bitten the end of it completely off. There was a raw stump where the tip had been. He could only assume the missing bit had been swallowed, or spit out, with the rest of the blood that had settled in his mouth while unconscious.
He fought off a bolt of nausea while reliving the meaty stew he had swallowed upon waking. Moving on, he thought, and pulled his fingers from his mouth. He patted the top of his head, then around to the back, and then felt his ears.
Grateful for the knowledge that at least his skull was still in one piece, he allowed his mind to feel out the remaining parts of his body. It was as if he were opening a sealed door in his consciousness, one that had been closed off to protect him from the knowledge of what lay beyond.
He could neither roll his body nor raise his torso in any way, his lower back pressed down by the great weight from above. Beneath him, something bulky and sharp-edged jammed hard into his pelvis and guts. Luckily it had not broken the skin, or any bones that he could tell. The weight on his spine was not severely painful, but it was immense, as if the slightest increase in pressure would snap his body in half, like shears pressing through the middle of a thick twig, leaving it in two.
He shifted his attention from his back and let his mind float down his legs. They were, he thought with a degree of confusion, exposed. He could feel the space around them, and when he gently tapped the toe of one foot where were his shoes he was missing his shoes against something hard he let out a held breath of relief at the welcome surge of feeling that ran through his foot and up his right leg. He tried to do the same with the left, but that leg was bent awkwardly, the ankle wedged into something heavy and twisted, like metal ribbing or, possibly, a piece of the building’s iron framework. But he could feel that trapped foot, which meant, he was pretty sure, that his back was not broken. At least, he thought less optimistically, not severely so.
Okay then, where does that leave me? Broken nose, certainly. Maybe broken cheekbone. Trapped arm, trapped leg. Back hurt, but likely not broken, because I can feel my fucking feet. My insides, though, this pressure in my stomach.
He broke off his thought, let his mind go blank, tried to be positive. He knew he was lucky to be alive.
His assessment complete for now, he tried to think back, to remember the moments prior to the building’s collapse.
Anearthquake, he thought, straining to piece the jostled memories, filled with panic and terror, together. He recalled how the office disappeared in large chunks, slipped away before his eyes as the earth shook. The receptionist, he thought, she was injured, her face...
Matthew didn’t want to think of her, or the fate of the other fifty or so people in that office. Dead, of course. They’re all dead. The whole firm wiped out with a snap of God’s fingers, a swipe of his mighty hand.
Unbidden, the thought sprang to him – with a twinge of instant shame – that he would not be getting the job.
He laughed, shook his head and let a few tears spill from his eyes as he did so, chuckling between gasps while lying down, down, in the deep dark. The laughter turned to coughing, then hacking. Blood spurted up his throat, sour on his tongue.
Is that internal bleeding? he wondered. No, dummy, you just swallowed half your tongue, remember? That’s your goddamn brunch today, boy-o.
What about Mr. Baskin? he wondered. What had happened to the elderly lawyer he was supposed to interview with? He’d never even met the man. Matthew wondered what the old coot had been doing when his world literally collapsed and he was dropped forty feet down, crushed amongst the bodies of his subordinates? Had he been chatting with his wife, the lovely Mrs. Baskin? Making dinner plans, maybe? Or had he been reviewing Matthew’s CV, boning up for the interview? Preparing the hard questions, wondering if this young man would be the right fit for his prestigious firm. A protégé, perhaps? A future partner in the making?
Doesn’t matter now, Matthew knew. Baskin’s firm was done. Literally wiped from the face of the earth. Force Majeure, Matthew thought involuntarily. The big Delete button. He couldn’t help himself thinking about all the life insurance policies that would not be paid out, the property damage that would not be reimbursed. Although, if Baskin was half as good a lawyer as Matthew had heard, the old man’s assets were likely fine. An old eagle like Baskin would cover all his bases, allowing for such things as lightning strikes, tsunamis and, yes, earthquakes.
For his part, Matthew had no life insurance. No savings, either, for that matter. What Matthew would be leaving to Diane and their child was debt. Shitloads and shitloads of debt. Student loans upward of a hundred thousand dollars. For what? A law degree he might never be able to use.
“If it please the court,” he mumbled, choking out the words, “this really fucking sucks.”
He wanted to laugh again. To find levity... but could not. He rested his head down lightly, forehead pressed against something cool and hard, a pillow that stank of concrete and dirt. He closed his eyes and waited for someone, anyone, to rescue him.
“NOT ADOPTED. DUMPED,” he told her, she with her Pinot and he with his lager.
Their second date. Time for storytelling. Time for This Is Your Life. If you think there’s a chance, if you think she’s the one. Then you give it up. You let if fly.
“My grandfather raised me from infancy. I never even met them. They left the country, never came back.”
She spun her glass, treading carefully. “You never tried to find them?”
Matthew shook his head. The din of the restaurant disrupted his thoughts, irritated him. “By the time I was old enough to give a shit, to fully understand, they were dead. Well, at least that’s what I was told. I got a letter once...” he trailed off, not ready to let her into the place that talking about the letter would take him. The painful doors it would open, showing her the twisting insides. He swallowed some beer, waved his hand dismissively over the spattered remains of their shared plate of grilled Brussel sprouts and mini Ahi tacos. “Plane crash somewhere in Spain. I was sixteen when my grandfather told me. He woke me up one Saturday morning, sat on my bed, and said ‘Your parents were killed yesterday. I’ll be gone a week or so. Get up, there’s things you need to do.’ And that was it. He left. A week later he came back, and we returned to our lives.”
“Jesus, a real sweetheart,” she said, appearing to instantly regret the words. The reaction of a college girl who knew nothing of the world. “I’m sorry, I mean...”
“No, it’s okay.” Matthew tried to smile, sensing her self-admonishment, hating the idea of her feeling uncomfortable. “He wasn’t a real emotional guy.” Matthew hoped his words, his smile, would relieve her apprehension. Because she could be the one, couldn’t she? “He’s a good man, a fair man. I love him.” He shrugged. “Besides, he’s all I have.”
Diane slowly spun the spine of her glass. “He’s alive, then?”
Matthew nodded. “I talk to him every day. Well, almost. He still works the farm, although it’s smaller now. No animals, just the fields. He’s a good man,” Matthew repeated lamely.
She reached out a hand and he took it.
I’ll take care of you forever, Matthew thought. And we’ll have children and I will love the shit out of them.
He pulled his hand away, laughed self-consciously as he swiped a stray tear from his eye. She smiled and handed him a clean napkin. He laughed again, falling, wondering if she was falling as well.
