Upside Down and Inside Out

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When I came to, I was in an astounding amount of pain. I am not sure how I was able to be anything but awake. How can one sleep through the agony? Upon quick reflection of the blinding level of pain, I could see why it is preferable to be unconscious to being awake. My body is smarter than my brain.

I tasted blood in my mouth, smelled the coppery/iron scent of it, and some other even worse smells. That is the least of it. My heels burned with pain like nothing I have ever felt before. I felt a slight swaying, and a sinus headache to go with my nightstick one. I ran my tongue around my mouth. The stick or the car or the differential, who knows, knocked out two front teeth, either side of the center ones. That helped explain the blood taste. Geez: I just started paying on the hospital bill, now I am going to have a huge dentist bill too!

It is silly to worry about dental implants at the moment. I have way worse problems.

Nothing made any sense. I opened my eyes slightly. I am hanging upside down. Swaying slightly. Rotating. Next to me is an animal carcass. Maybe a deer or a moose or something. I don't hunt, so I have no idea what it exactly is. It is brown. I was hanging close to the animal, but my vision not clear. Partly from the eyes not being all the way open. Partly because the pain made it hard to concentrate on the phyla of the creatures of the forest. Taxonomy: Dead animal in the same situation as I am.

My hands were tied together by nylon tie strap like the kind cops use for impromptu handcuffs. It is thin enough it cut into my wrists and that made it part of the symphony of pain. Everything else including the stick-thing and differential whacks to my head was minor annoyances compared to my heels. I looked up, which made my vision go all spotty. My heels hurt like they did because someone shoved a hook through them, and then hauled me upside down to this overhead rack using an attached block and tackle.

I rotated slowly around, my vision swimming in and out with the searing pain of the hooks, my weight pulling against them such that even the tiniest movements magnified the agony. There is a minor chorus from the other places on my body that are beaten and bruised from being run over by the police cruiser. The hook in the heels was a flame though. Nothing else could compete.

I rotated slowly to face a silver/gray corrugated steel wall. A small metal desk sat near the wall and leaning against it, a man wearing the uniform of a deputy sheriff. I think it is the same guy that drove the car over me, but I did not really get a good look at him before being plowed under. The driver had been wearing aviators.

This guy had stone grey eyes, short wiry hair brushed straight back, and is fairly big and burly. Grizzly Bear came to mind as a general first impression. The nightstick in his hand he spun about mindlessly.

He looked right at me and did not leap to my aid. A cop who is not trying to help a guy hung like a side of beef? Bad sign. Running over the same guy with their departmentally issued cop car? Also a bad sign.

He spoke and removed any doubts. His voice oddly pitched. Weird. Higher than it should be it seemed. Rather than a growl, more of a song. A song with crappy lyrics.

"So... you are awake. Fuck. How are you still alive? Jesus Fuck. Whatever. That's OK. That's good. Fine then. You can tell me where the god damn hell she is, asshole."

He seemed very agitated. Very. It made me, if possible, even more scared. Fear competed with the pain. "Sure... ahh... Who?" I cleverly and also barely replied, my voice a rasp.

My brain scrambled in every direction trying to figure a way out of this and it saw none. I nearly died in the hospital, and now I am going to die here instead. Sometimes when your time is up, it is up. I think there is a movie about death not liking to be cheated and sending all sorts of crazy new ways to die after the people that did not pay their death tab. Not sure if being hung up like a slab of meat is one of the clever death comes-a-calling things though. I just saw the commercial. I never liked horror movies. I sure as hell did not like being the star of this one.

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