Cricket arrived from somewhere.  She had a lighted cigarette which she placed in my mouth, grinning.

"Got it from the prop department," she said.  "They always used to give these to wounded soldiers.  I can't imagine why."

I puffed on it.  It wasn't tobacco, thank god.

"Cheer up," Cricket said.  "You tore up her fists pretty good."

"I'm clever that way; I pounded them to hamburger with my chin."

I suddenly felt an alarming urge to cry.  Holding it back, I asked both of them to leave me alone for a while.  They did, and I lay there smoking, studying the canvas ceiling.  There were no answers written there.

Why had the taste of life turned so bitter for me in the last weeks?

#

I had sort of drifted away.  When I came back, Brenda was bending over me.  Considering her height, she had a long way to bend.

"How'd you find me?" I asked her.

"I'm a reporter, remember?  It's my business to find things out."

I thought of several cutting replies, but something about the look on her face made me hold them back.  Puppy love.  I had vague memories of how badly that could hurt, when it wasn't returned.

And to give her her due, she was improving.  Maybe she would be a reporter, some day.

"You needn't have bothered.  It's not like I'm badly hurt.  The head injuries were minimal."

"I'm not surprised.  It would take a lot to hurt your head."

"The brain wasn't injured at . . ."  I stopped, realizing she had just taken a jab at me.  It had been pretty feeble, it hardly qualified as a joke -she might never master that skill-but it was something.  I grinned at her.

"I was going to stop by Texas and bring that doctor . . . what was it you called him?"

"Sawbones.  Pillroller.  Quack.  Caulker.  Nepenthe.  Leech.  Lazarmonger."

Her smile grew a little glassy; I could see her filing the terms away for later research.

I was smiling, but the truth is, even with current medical practices, being paralyzed from the waist down is a frightening thing.  We have an entirely different attitude toward our bodies than most humans down the ages, we don't fear injury and we can turn off pain and we generally treat flesh and bone as just items to be fixed, but when things are badly wrong something in the most primitive level of our brain stands up on its hind legs and howls at the Earth.  I was having a galloping anxiety attack that the painkiller plugged into my medulla wasn't dealing with at all.  I have no idea if Brenda realized this, but her presence at my bedside was strangely comforting.  I was glad she was there.  I took her hand.

"Thanks for coming," I said.  She squeezed my hand, then looked away.

#