Immobility

Chapter Fifteen

For a seemingly interminable moment, I stare incredulously and unblinkingly at the gray metal door, devoid of all emotion, my brain slowly processing the information with which it is being bombarded. An image of a suturing kit and prepackaged square pads dampened with isopropyl alcohol as well as a syringe filled with lidocaine floats through my head, and my legs instantaneously become functional once again—however, it seems as though I am in a hypnotic trance, for this time I seem to lack any control of my movements, simply seem to walk toward the door without the performance of any sufficient thinking and effort; perhaps the anticipation of treating my injuries and schlepping back into my devastated hometown is overpowering my overtired brain. My grip on the handle of the ax has weakened drastically, causing the blade to descend enough so that it scrapes against the floor and generates a soft grating noise.

A fog of befuddlement mantles my mind, which cannot assist my struggling to comprehend the situation in which I have inhumed myself; of course, I am utterly unperturbed by the sight of the door, but it has taken me by such a wave of surprise that I am cognitively speechless. However, I am tossed back onto the field of reality in a split second and deliberately slip into the pocket of my sweatpants the waterproof penlight, then push open the cylinder deadbolt with the shuddering fingers on my empty left hand and grip the handle as if it is a lifeline for a moment before turning it and applying a small amount of pressure to the metal of which the remainder of the door consists, opening it.

The canopy of cumulonimbus clouds, which is an intimidating shade of black, hovering low, and boiling mayhemically, unremittingly releases overwhelmingly—not to mention almost otherworldly—powerful torrents of the heaviest rain I have ever seen, and the wind howls in seemingly deafening gusts, blowing the sheets of rain almost horizontally. It is completely impossible to see anything more than just a few scant feet ahead of me through the windblown downpour, and anything within this radius outside the industrial building is quite obfuscated. Stupendous bolts of lightning sporadically seems to split the swirling stormclouds as if it is a spear consisting of millions upon millions of volts of electricity gripped by a seasoned mythical warrior and illuminates the leaden skies for a brief second, and they are simultaneously accompanied by reverberating thunder that seems to rattle the resistant walls of the petroleum and natural gasoline factory with an explosive roar like those of ten thousand lions. There is instantaneously and quite obviously no doubt that this monstrous thunderstorm is tornadic. I certainly did not expect to meet such a gargantuan addition to my list of complications that must be endured while trying to navigate the submerged streets.

I swallow hard as a lump the size of a baseball forms in my throat and fight to control my panic, retrieving the penlight from my pocket and shining the beam into the torrent of rain enshrouding the city—the darkness is barely split by the white emanating from the cylinder.

Untying the sleeves of the jacket and slipping it on, I stagger drunkenly through the doorway and out onto a steel platform, whereupon I am struck by the torrential rain with such overwhelming force that I am nearly knocked to the ground—the downpour is so excessively strong that it feels as if zillions of needles are uninterruptedly stabbing me. If not for the goggles protecting my corneas from the blasting wind and unrelenting rain, I would be forced to seal the gap between my eyelids, intensifying my gratitude for whoever stowed this article of eyewear in the back pocket of the windbreaker in which I'm clad.

I slowly inch forward until the silhouetted outline of what appears to be a steel railing appears from the unending haze of rain. I store the penlight in my pocket momentarily and grip the railing tightly with both hands, discontinuing the circulation of blood in my knuckles and whitening then as a result of clenching my fists, staring downward, but the surface of the floodwater below is out of my view. However, after another few seconds, everything is illuminated by a brilliant white flash of lightning, and I manage to catch a glimpse of the surface, which is an intensely deep shade of black like oil, roiling with towering whitecapped waves; heavy sheets of spray are lifted off the sea of darkness and blown high into the air by the howling wind. A cold wave of foreboding crashes on top of my head and saturates my brain—I haven't the slightest idea how I am supposed to cross the murderous flood with my vision supremely impaired.

As I unhurriedly saunter away from the railing, a blindingly excruciating burst of pain overwhelms my ears as they pop from what seems to be a thoroughgoing alteration of the pressure of the atmosphere, and the sensation of sturdy steel beneath my feet inexplicably disappears, and I am cocooned in a soccer net of blistering heat. It feels as if I have been placed inside a high-temperature chamber furnace set to its maximum operating temperature—I can feel the tiny hairs on the back of my neck singe and tongues of intense heat licking the skin. My lungs are hollow and I struggle to regain control of my breathing, but the rapid hyperventilation does nothing to suppress the anguish, and each deep inhalation seems to soak my windpipe and lungs with gasoline and then set it aflame. My whole field of vision has flared a blinding white and I have been seemingly deafened by an unremitting tinnitus, and every single nerve in my body is buzzing almost painfully, rendering me motionless.

However, the whiteness dissipates within seconds and I find myself suspended in midair with nothing but a windblown torrent of excessive rain in sight; I brusquely realize that I have been catapulted into the air by a powerful force, plausibly an explosion, and must now endure plummeting a great number of stories down into the seething black flood—I also notice that I've lost the penlight and ax.

Gravity wraps itself around me, and my stomach leaps into my gullet as I speedily begin to plunge toward the practically limitless sea of darkness below. I draw in several large breaths of the moist air, and then a sudden pain seems to jam spearpoints through the soles of my feet and up the interior of my legs, and my knees instantaneously buckle, and a stabbing cold crushes through my muscles and into the marrow of my bones, causing my body to cramp excruciatingly and breathtakingly and find itself imprisoned within a cell of paralysis. I struggle to release my muscles from their prison cells and manage to succeed.

I kick my legs and thrash my arms violently—unbelievably blinding pain ripping through my bones and reaching down to the marrow—in an endeavor to propel myself to the surface, the extreme cold like a million hypodermic needles embedding themselves within my skin. 

After another few seconds, my lungs begin to tighten up as my air supply is depleted—I need to swim to the surface immediately, for I will drown if I stay down here for much longer. Fortunately, my head breaks the surface shortly subsequent to this thought, and I suck the fresh air of the outdoors. I shift onto my back to remain afloat, and manage to ride the waves rather than be shoved under by a breaking sheet of foamy water. But one question still has yet to be answered—how will I navigate the streets and locate the hospital?