THE ACCIDENT

THE ACCIDENT

Anna decided to step out for a long brisk walk to clear her head before resuming the battle with a different cleanser for each room. Clive had not entirely understood her dismay at coming through their front door to be brutally greeted by an alien disarray and Anna thought it best to walk away before bitter words would push them further apart. Something she'd already sensed since their move to the Suffolk countryside. Anna needed time to think. She'd been overwrought at work and now this. How could he not think to ask a woman with an ugly dog who occasionally came to call to wait outside. Did he not appreciate the effort she made each day before and after work to eradicate all mess and disorder from their fine home. The whole place was a mess and needed cleaning from top to bottom. Anna prided herself on her tidy home and liked to think it also reflected the strict orderliness she managed her life by. Anna didn't even like dogs and couldn't abide those that had the inclination to let their animals freely nestle on the furnishings. The vicious muddy paw print that Anna had first noticed scraped upon one of her Fresh Barley painted walls came back to Anna's mind and her whole body raged as her skin tightened it's hold over her thin bones. Distracted, Anna almost fell as her wellington slipped carelessly in the wet muddy furrow the tractor had left. These boots will need a hose down before tomorrow Anna decided. The man from the horse stables across from them had asked Anna if she'd like to come and help herself to some manure he'd got piled up there. She couldn't go with muddy boots. He'd think she was sloppy. Maybe he'd think she didn't have any respect for country life and thought it was okay to go about caked in mud. That it didn't matter. Well it did matter, in fact it mattered a great deal to Anna and she'd always go more than out of her way to show that.
Anna soothed herself with the thought that she would easily get back from her walk with plenty of time to clean the house and bathe herself before the egg lady would drop off their weekly supply of a dozen fresh brown eggs and perhaps a packet of goats cheese if she'd got round to making some. Anna would have order once again and still, no-one would ever imagine that tidiness had ever left her side. Anna brightened at this and decided to clip a few stems of rose hips from the hedgerow as she approached the next bend. Anna was pleased with herself as she reached into the deep pocket of her walking jacket and found her small clippers she'd got as a free gift with the readers digest that she kept there for just such an occasion. The rose hips hung heavily from the branches, bruising on the ground. I must remember to remove the small hard thorns from the stems, she thought as the lower branches snagged on her clothing.

Anna was surprised at how early the sun had set since the clocks went back as she turned toward the footpath that would lead her home. Anna sensed something horrendous in the normally soothing sunset that evening. It's coloured flames screaming too rapidly across the darkening sky. She'd have to hurry to get round her usual loop in time before it grew dark. The last leg of her journey she always made by road and Anna liked to pound the road with her boots as she walked to shift any difficult clumps of mud and debris so that she arrived at the back porch quite neatly in case anyone had dropped by. She'd have to get a move on now.

A soft opaqueness crept gently into the outer corners of her eyes as the last of the days light fell into night smoothing it's darkness over the surface of her hardening eyeballs. As her eyes accustomed themselves to the changing light Anna quickened her pace until she reached the first crunch of smoky coloured gravel that marked the beginning of the recently re-surfaced road. Drivers had been advised for weeks now to drive slowly and with caution. The loose gravel topping still yet to have sunk into the sticky surface shot itself about under the spin of tyres, ricocheting in various directions depending on the speed of the vehicles. As much as Anna quite liked the sounds these small stony chips made on the underside of cars, she found herself anticipating being hit by one as she heard a driver in the distance approaching at what sounded like some speed. And possibly little caution, she sighed.

A silver flash hit Anna with a startling thump that lifted her several feet from the ground as a snap deep in her pelvis released a pain that began in the front part of her head and ran sparkling through the webbing of her nerve fibres. Her hand released the gathered stems, the rose hips splitting beneath her as she fell. The perfumed seeds from their rounded bellies cooling quickly on the tarmac. Vomit swelled up from her stomach and splattered unattractively out through her mouth and nose as her head rested on the first fallen leaves of Autumn. She noticed the road markings out of the corner of her eye and felt consoled that this space she'd occupied wasn't prohibited, if not ideal. With the back of her hand Anna quickly wiped away the vomit from her chin. She felt a bristle there and wished she'd noticed it earlier and tweezered it out. She tried to straighten her left leg out from beneath her but a loss of sensation in her lower half prevented this. Anna looked down to assess this awkward situation. She anticipated another car slowing to approach the bend in the road and was flooded with embarrassment and an urge to rapidly get herself together. It was rush hour still and Anna knew how drivers like to race from their city jobs back to their renovated barns and farm workers houses that no farm hand had been able to afford for a long time now. It was now quite obvious to Anna as she searched for some composure that the silver flash she'd seen had been a car. I've been hit by a car, she thought sensibly. As this thought settled in, Anna's thoughts turned to the driver and what on earth they would have made of her walking along the road at this hour, in this low light. It was really rather foolish of her and she ought to have known better. But still, they hadn't stopped so it was safe to say it was no-one they knew so no matter really. Anna's legs appeared fine if only slightly bent at a peculiar angle. Anna moved her head to get a clearer view and to her horror she saw that she had landed on the intestines of some dead animal or another. Possibly a muntjack, hopefully not a squirrel. As Anna's disgust grew she felt a coolness spread throughout her abdomen and wished she'd worn a heavier sweater. Clive had warned her only this morning that it was getting cooler out. Anna now felt a strong pain crawling stealth like from her right shoulder toward her elbow as she attempted to tug her jacket around the disappearing warmth she knew to be there somewhere. Things were becoming ridiculous thought Anna, and with increasing annoyance used her apparently manageable left arm to protect her body from further loss of it's precious heat. With a sudden fear that kicked her in the throat, Anna touched on a cooling mass of sticky blood that had saturated the soft fleece lining of her walking jacket. She'd lined the jacket herself. It was an ordinary looking light-weight jacket she'd had for some years that had begun to look a little jaded so had decided to line it in a light fleecy grey cotton to make it a little more robust to use as an outdoor garment. It would need a thorough wash now, she thought. With a little more investigation from her shaking fingers Anna felt a soft and swollen wound that spread from the front of her hips and up toward the side of her lower ribcage. Instantly recognising that the intestines she'd landed on were her own, Anna panicked wildly as she heard the acceleration of a car or possibly a small van in the near distance. With her arm fully stretched, Anna 's hand scrabbled at the cold plump intestines running toward the storm drain to her left. She was surprised and then instantly pleased as they were more manageable than she'd expected. Anna felt gratified that they were connected softly together and moved as one with not much more than a gentle push in either direction. Anna pushed from her mind images she'd seen on a butchers block as she attempted the last tricky manoeuvre of poking her intestines back into the wound on her side. This proved difficult and it seemed to work better if she just tucked them underneath, between her back and her jacket. Anna let out a shallow breath as she relaxed in the knowledge she'd tidied up her mess just as the oncoming vehicle accelerated out of the bend and then broke sharply before her. She heard voices in panic as at least two people exited the car. Anna felt calm and thankful that she had managed to get everything under control. All felt well in her world.

This feeling proved to be momentary. Anna began to doubt whether or not she'd told Clive they needed an extra half dozen eggs this week as she'd planned to make a fruit curd this weekend. She was certain she'd not get back in time now.