Then he tugged, just as hard as he could.
The jacket ripped at the shoulder. There was a sharp crack and something slid, and something broke, like a pane of glass smashed with a hammer. Scared, he jerked frantically and, to his surprise, his arm slid free. Hysterical, he pulled it toward him as if bitten. In his quick jerking movement, his hand caught on a thick dagger of protruding glass, sharp as a razor, that caught the crease of his hand just beneath his wedding ring and punched through the finger, tearing it halfway through, just above the knuckle. Shocked, he froze. He could feel the finger dangling, the blood pulsing from the wound like a garden hose that had been stopped up by a crick, then suddenly loosened.
A second later the pain caught up, ripping through his cushion of shock like a flamethrower, shredding his mind with the stabbing thrusts of a thousand knives. He screamed, and the echo of his scream died in front of him, absorbed by the indifferent dark. His mind raced with pain and panic, terrified he was losing too much blood. He knew he had to free his arm, to somehow stop the pulsing blood from emptying through his torn finger. The glass was still caught in the webbing of his hand, part of his finger still hung by a tendon to his body. He could hear the dangling clink of his wedding band tapping the glass shard as his finger swung dumbly.
He screamed again and, with a last violent burst – eyes bugged out and wet lips curled in preparation of doing what no man should ever have to do – he let his mind slip into momentary madness, and pulled.
The finger caught, stretched... then ripped away.
His hand was free.
Sobbing through screams, he pulled his arm, gingerly now, though the ripped sleeve. He rolled his body as much as he could, desperately trying to get his arm out of the coat, the remainder of it thumb-tacked into his back, like a pin in a cushion, by the weight on top of him.
Feeling slightly dizzy and severely nauseous as more and more blood pulsed out of his body with every passing second, Matthew slid his arm from the torn sleeve.
He brought the mangled hand to his face, as if hoping to see the damage. He could see nothing, not even a shadow. He moved the hand even closer, hoping to get at least a sense of how bad it was, when a squirt of warm fluid shot from the jagged hole at the base of his non-existent finger and sprayed his lips.
Spitting and crying, he reached around with his other hand, managed to pull the white square-folded handkerchief from his breast pocket. He flapped it open and pressed it against the wound where his gold wedding band had once rested. He lowered his head to the blood-drenched concrete and wailed, the pain nearly unbearable. The blood had soaked through the cloth and he knew it wasn’t nearly tight enough. He removed it, felt the chilled air coating the wound, and then re-wrapped the blood-soaked handkerchief around his hand again. He couldn’t tie a knot, but managed to tuck the loose end into the cloth to keep it tight.
His hand pulsed and twitched, but he thought, perhaps, the flow was slowing. He pressed the wound hard against his chest, trying to apply as much pressure as he could.
“Don’t let me die, please don’t let me die,” he whimpered, and saw twinkling lights frying at the edges of his vision. God, don’t let me die, he prayed, and then closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to the cool, slick concrete. With his injured hand clamped beneath him, his eyelids fluttered, and he passed out.
“SIR? SIR? YOU there?” An insistent voice.
Matthew stirred. His head felt like an anvil that had been well-used. Recently.
His eyelids were gummy. His mouth a thick, rough hollow in the bottom of his face that inhaled the oxygen his brain needed to let his body know how good and truly fucked it was.
“Matthew?” the voice came again, more apologetic, questioning.
Matthew groaned, turned his head, opened his useless eyes.
“Dee?” he said, his voice a croak.
“Yes, yes,” she said, sounding relieved. “I thought, well, I heard you screaming, and then you were quiet for so long, and you weren’t answering. I’m sorry, I thought...”
“It’s okay,” he said, remembering the lost finger, the bleeding hand. He felt the clenched fist balled up beneath him, but had no desire to move it away from his body. There would be no way to inspect the damage, anyway. No way for him to know whether he would live or die.
As he woke, he thought he could feel something down by his feet. Was something pulling at him? He wasn’t sure... but there was no pain. His legs were completely numb, the weight settled into his spine making sure they’d received none of the blood needed to fill their veins, feed their many nerve endings. He dismissed the loss of feeling as something currently out of his control and put it out of his mind.
“Hey Dee,” he said. “I think I screwed up pretty bad here.” He laughed, or thought about laughing. What came out was a soft hack followed by a groan. “It seems,” he continued, “I’ve lost a few bits of myself along the way.”
“But you’re alive,” Dee said, strongly, confidently. Almost a rebuke. Matthew marveled that the woman could have so much energy. She sounded so close. So close.
He reached his good hand toward the sound of her voice, started fingering the rubble.
“What are you doing?” Dee said, the slightest tinge of fear in her voice once more.
“Please,” he begged, holding back sobs as he picked apart the pieces of glass and concrete that formed a barrier between them. “Please, Dee,” he continued, “I think I’m going to die.”
There was no further protest from her, no commands for him to cease and desist from his tunneling. So he went on. A lumpy chunk of brick tossed aside, the light tinkling of falling glass. He continued to pull away bits and pieces.
He paused, listening. He could hear that she was also digging now. She was helping! He almost wept with relief and doubled his efforts, the tunnel he’d created now deep enough for him to reach in up to his elbow. There was a light scratching from a few feet away, as if Dee were doing the same.
“Thank you, Dee, thank you,” he said.
“I can’t move much,” she said, almost shyly. Again with that tone of apology.
“Can you reach your hand toward my voice?” he said, his arm now nearly fully extended toward her.
“Yes, I’m trying,” she said.
And then, then, as his fingers burrowed, he could sense an opening. A whisper of cool air brushed his fingertips, and then he had her. His fingers touched hers and they twined, groped for each other like horny teenagers in the backseat of a borrowed car. The coast is clear, he thought of saying, and gripped her fingers so tightly he had to make sure not to hurt her.
Her hand was warm, and dry. Her skin felt like dust.
“Matthew,” was all she said, as he sobbed and held her hand in a fevered grip.
“I’m dying, Dee,” he repeated, and the contact, that connection with another living being, opened a dam inside him and released all the fear and anxiety he had been holding back. “There’s a, a very large piece of concrete on top of me. It’s on my back. I think my back is broken, and I can’t feel my legs. I’ve bitten off a part of my tongue, and, please don’t ask me how, I’ve managed to lose a finger. And now I’m bleeding pretty bad here, yeah... and I’ve pissed myself, Dee. I’m sorry but I have and I think maybe I shit myself. I can’t feel anything but it’s pressing on me and it’s slowly crushing me to death.”
“Matthew, please,” she pleaded, begging him to silence. “Please, Matthew, please...” was all she said, until his words slowed, then stopped. He was so tired. So thirsty.
He wanted to die now. It was a horrible, empty feeling. He wanted to die.
