Untitled II

Billy opened his eyes, he was in a place that he had never seen before. Large white washed walls, the beep beep beeping of futuristic looking machines, and the humming fan whirling overhead. He was hooked up to various metal boxes, displaying flickering numbers, the ups and downs of wavy lines and the pump pumping of fluids and gases. His head was heavy and empty, and the room was moving from side to side. He was dizzy.

He felt like a character in a black and white movie, strange women and grand looking men were walking past the large window to his left. He could not hear them but made up the conversations they may be having in his head. How Billy was doomed, how his body was a mess and how he would be thrown out to sea for the sharks to feed on his useless remains.

As the weeks went by, the strangers became friends, they comforted Billy and dressed his wounds, but Billy was still locked in his own little world, only answering with grunts and hand gestures. He would close his eyes and wish the clock could be turned back, he asked God for help and would try to deny the situation he was in.

They had tried to save Billy's leg, the large men with masks covering their faces. They had taken bucket after bucket of blood, they had stuck needles in his groin, his hands and his one functioning foot. They had removed skin from his thighs, muscles from his back but nothing had worked. It was as though his body was rejecting any chance of a recovery, as if it was Billy's destiny to have one leg. So there it was, his future laid out before him, the path chosen, Billy was to be a cripple from the age of thirteen. A wheelchair bound freak. He thought he would join a circus where customers would throw pennies for him to dance.