injuring

An excerpt from my writing:

I seemed to be the one to have trouble with injuries. Another time, one of the kids from a few houses down was out front by the highway, had his bike upside down, and was spinning the rear wheel by cranking the pedal by hand. He had been fixing a flat tire and had gotten started turning that wheel and became mesmerized by it. There IS something mesmerizing about a wheel spinning so smoothly and fast as hell. There’s danger and beauty and a whispering swish of sound as the spokes break the air in increments. After a while he throws a little pebble into the spinning vortex…..ping……it hits and goes spinning off. Pretty cool. He throws another one….ping….this is great! He throws a bigger pebble…..pong……wow! It goes wheeling off and clacks onto the highway 100 feet away. I am watching with amazement as the power of this upturned bike becomes revealed to me. It s a form of mobile catapult that could be used for good or evil, its got the power. As he is still chinging small rocks and debris into the wheel and watching them loft away I decide it is time to up the bet and see what this baby can really do. I grab a chunk of asphalt from the deteriorating highway shoulder (everything is old and deteriorating in this town, except for our new house) and stand in front of the spinning wheel of hypnotism. My eyes fixed on the center of the vortex, I slowly lift the chuck and throw it overhand into the wheel…….KONG………..it hits the wheel and the spokes give a sproing we had not heard yet that day. It rebounds from the tension of the spring/spokes and arcs into the air – straight back out trying to leap into my outstretched hand. Unfortunately my forehead was now where my hand had been and the asphalt caught me squarely an inch above the right eye. Momentarily stunned, I backed away and staggered to stay upright. I bent over and looked down at the highway, dazzled by little drops of red spattering around, that swirled in the direction I turned my head. In a moment I realized that this was blood from me and went running the 100 yards down the driveway to the house. I tore through the door (opening it this time) and stomped through the house looking for my mother and leaving a very clear forensic trail of red matter should any detective later need to track me down for details of the event. I finally found her – in front of the television and said bluntly, “I hurt my head…”. By this time the wound had started to pour blood and looked quite impressive. There was no way for my mother to know if I had lost part of my scalp and side of my head (and possibly brain), or just how invasive this wound was. She was rattled but managed to start wiping the blood away, mentally calculating the time it would take to get me back to that small doctor’s office, and if this could be done before the life had completely drained from my now heaving body. Once the most recent era of blood was cleared it became obvious that the damage was not as severe as first indicated and a leisurely ride to the doctor to implant a few fresh stitches would make me good as new, for now.