Clavicula

von Marcus Krug

You probably know these kind of video clips from YouTube; there are thousands of them, and they are more or less funny – as long as you are not involved. It is so obvious; how can someone not see this coming? As long as you are not involved!

Well, I was and I did not.

I was on the way to Black Rock – wetsuit in my rear pannier bag. En route to an evening swim, which had become an almost daily routine lately. The sun was shining like most of the evenings recently. And cars parked along the Prom in Salthill.

And that is where you usually start laughing when you see this particular setting on YouTube. “That dumbass is going to jump the handlebar, just keep on watching!” you would probably say to your friend next to you. And then he jumps – not your friend, but the poor guy on the bike in the video clip – what else can he do?!

I saw the driver’s door opening. I saw it and pulled instinctively to the right. But the right in this case wasn’t right enough. Because the left tip of my handlebar still got caught by the door that was still in the process of being opened. Then I jumped and flew.

“I am so sorry! That was my fault, I should have checked in the mirror. I am so sorry!” Domhnall said, as he tried to lift me up from the ground.

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it again, okay?!” I said though my clenched teeth. I should not have said that out loud. But it was too late. I should have thought it only inside my head, but there were already so many other things begging to be thought right after I had come off the bike so violently. That must have been the adrenaline, I believe. My body was flooded with this precious hormone so that I felt like one of those invincible superheroes – only without the ridiculous cape.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” that was Domhnall’s wife. Like most of the smarter part of this planet’s population with at least a bit of common sense left to her name, she had left the car on the safe side. “You are bleeding. Wait, I get you something.” There was a dark red hole in my left thumb and then there was something that looked like a piece of bone piercing through the flesh. But I did not care. Just put a plaster on it and be done with it.

Domhnall and his wife were swarming around me like pesky pigeons lusting for breadcrumbs. They were taking care of me and the bike and all. But still, I did not want them to be there, I wanted them to leave me alone. I was pretty much convinced that after I had put on my wetsuit and had swam a few strokes in the bay, the pain would go away by itself and all would be fine and go back to normal in no time. Wishful superhero thinking, you know?!

I was dragged back into reality, though, when Domhnall asked me if the bike was okay. From the looks of it, the bike seemed fine. I had hit the road first and the bike had basically landed safely on top of me. “Only the chain has come off.” I said. Even though I had gotten up from the ground propped upon my right arm – feeling nothing, now the chain seemed to be so much heavier than myself before, because lifting the bloody thing – with my right hand – back onto the frontal chain set proved to be impossible. I did not even feel the greasy connection of metal links in my fingers.

With the adrenaline rush gradually wearing off, I became aware of the painful fact that I was not a superhero at all, but an ordinary and at that mortal human being. So I surrendered to ephemerality and accepted Domhnall’s offer to drive me and the bike home. And around this time it also leaked into my consciousness that something funny must have happened to my right arm and shoulder. Because when I got into the passenger seat, Domhnall had to fasten my seatbelt for me.

With the adrenaline almost entirely flushed out of my system, I felt overcome by a leaden tiredness. Wrapped in this heavy blanket I just wanted to stay at home after Domhnall had brought me and the bike into the house. But my flatmate insisted on going to the emergency service just to be sure how to deal with the injury.

I have had heard stories about this institution. Time in there, they said, is like gooey molasses, passing in slowest slow motion only. That is why I brought a book. Just to kill time if necessary. But I think – among other things – I broke the record that day. I had dropped the paper work into the letter box of a certain blue door down the corridor, as I was instructed by the receptionist, and had just found myself a comfortable enough chair to sit down and enjoy the book, when a nurse called my name.

In a room full of beds and curtains, I was seated on a greenish bed with a paper sheet on top.

“Marcus, how do you feel and what happened to you?” nurse Siobhán asked me, while she took the blood soaked paper tissue off my left thumb. Just a bruise and a flesh wound, no actual bone sticking out, I could even wiggle the swollen thing.

“I’ve dislocated my shoulder, I guess.” I said. “Just give me some painkillers and pop the nasty thing back in.” Siobhán rolled her icy blue eyes and spun around on her swivel chair. When she came back after her three-sixty, facing me, I was given one of those small and transparent plastic cups filled with pills of different colours and shapes. They would help me to cope with the pain, she said.

“You look like you fell off your bike, judging from your condition and outfit, of course.” That was nurse Deidre, getting ready to leave.

“Yes, I suppose so. That’s what happened. Can you just pop it back in, and then we can all go home, please?” I said.

“We will need to examine you first. Can you stand up, please?” Siobhán asked. With my left arm I was holding on to my book, phone and wallet. My right arm was dangling listlessly alongside my body.

“We will just put this back here.” Siobhán said, taking my belongings off me and dropping them back on the bed. “It will hurt a bit, but we need to get you out of your cycling gear, okay?!” And at that nurse Siobhán started to pull all three layers of sports gear over my head – in one go.

Unfortunately, the cocktail of drugs had not kicked in yet. And when the skin-tight material of my cycling gear pulled my right shoulder up and closer to my head, an up-swell of pain, high like a tsunami wave, flooded my body. Pain, in general, is to be understood as a warning signal, intentionally. It usually indicates that there is an injury. But I knew all this already. Why did this daft cow need to make me suffer again? This wasn’t a nurse, but a butcher in disguise; and for an instant I saw a shiny meat cleaver lying within reach of nurse Siobhán on the table next to me. But it just turned out to be only a transparent folder with my medical record in it, reflecting the bright light from the ceiling.

I suppose it is nonsensical bullshit, but in the internet they say that a human body can only bear up to forty-five del units of pain. But at the time of giving birth, a woman feels up to fifty-seven del of pain. This is similar to twenty bones getting fractured at the same time. And then they also say something about getting kicked in the balls – something I can relate to more than going into labour –, which is supposedly even more agonising. The pain I felt in the emergency room, however, was so overwhelming that for a short moment I was close to passing out. But I did not. Instead I felt nauseous and almost threw up.

“Look at this, Siobhán!” Deidre was back in the room pointing at my bare right shoulder. “You can clearly see it. There is a gap. See?! And the other one feels so smooth.” Now standing right in front of me, Deirdre was touching both of my collarbones at the same time, smiling at me.

“Marcus, it looks like a clavicular fracture. But to be sure we’ll need to do an x-ray of your shoulder.” Siobhán said, looking over Deidre’s shoulder from behind.

In the end the x-ray confirmed a double fractured collarbone. And sitting there on the green bed again, looking at the x-ray on the computer screen, kind of a déjà vu was coming up and I had the unmistakable feeling like I knew it all along, since I had come off the bike so unexpectedly. Before my mind’s eye, I could even see myself going over the handlebar – just like if I was on YouTube –, and with the painkillers gradually taking effect this put a maliciously gleeful smile on my face.