Out of Words

The Detective went to the nurse station, he asked for this particular motorcycle accident victim that was sent to this hospital. The Nurse informed him that The Patient has just regained her consciousness and was ready to be interviewed.

The Nurse showed him to The Patient room. The Detective peeked through the little glass window at the top of the door. There lay a beat up girl with apparent bruises and cuts on her exposed skin. IV tubes ran down her wrist. She had her eyes closed but The Nurse assured him that she was not sleeping. The nurse left The Detective alone with The Patient.

Once The Patient realized that someone was with her, she opened her eyes.

“Hello” said The Detective. He had to strip his sturdy unfriendly expression that he always has on questioning process, since his interviewee was just a mere teenager of 16, not to mention injured. Badly. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Better” answered the girl.

Then, awkward silence. He was more comfortable to be assigned to interview some hardcore criminal than a young victim like this.

“How was he?” asked the girl, breaking the silence. Her voice was coarse. She meant for her boyfriend that has been on the accident with her.

“I’m sorry. He didn’t make it.” answered the detective. In fact, the patient in front of him was unconscious for 3 days and the boyfriend- who was riding the motorcycle- died on the spot. “Oh” she said, quietly. She felt her ribs broken all over again, crushing her chest and lungs. But no tears. “He died, then?” she asked after a deep sigh.

The Detective nodded.

She felt like crying but she couldn’t. She realized that she must be shouting and being hysterical by the news, but she just unable to. She felt paralyzed.

“Can you tell me exactly what happened that night?” asked The Detective.

She closed her eyes, recalling the moment she and her boyfriend rode on that motorcycle. She remembered that her boyfriend appeared in front of her house with a motorcycle that he had stolen from his brother. He asked her to come with him. ‘I can make you fly. You like flying, right?’ that was what he said to her that night. At least that how she remembered it. Well, who doesn’t like flying?

She told the detective, “We were having so much fun. Shouting and screaming. It felt like we were flying. The wind, slapping our helmets, seeped into my face. We were so fast, so swift, everything around us blurred. Only the stars could keep up with us. We were actually flying! We screamed our lungs out. The blood rushed to my head, my heart throbbed, thudded, so fast it almost hurt my chest. On that moment I thought I was scared. But then I knew that I wasn’t scared or afraid. I was just thrilled that the rush was overwhelming. Not the least bit scared. He kept on screaming and wasn’t seemed to be afraid, either. I mean, birds aren’t afraid of flying, right?” she was creepily in trance, it felt like she actually relived the moment.The Detective let her continue.

She sighed. “I wanted to know why I wasn’t afraid. Why he wasn’t afraid. I wanted to know how it feels to be scared, though. How would it feel? Well, I’m not a bird” She continued “Have you ever wondered about that, Detective?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess not, though. No.”

“Hmm… interesting” responded her.

“Then what happened?” asked The Detective again.

She took a deeper sigh this time. Filling her lungs with all the air it could contain. Then she said “I covered his eyes.”

*this short story is adapted from May Kashahara’s accident in the novel The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. May Kashahara was one key character in this book, and she told the main character- Mr. Wind Up Bird- of her motorcycle accident.