Part Four

Motion; he was being dragged. His head bounced over the clumps of grass in the ditch. The vehicle lay on its side lay on its side, smashed. He opened his eyes and light stabbed them. The smoke from the wreck was strong in his nostrils. He tried to shake himself free, but his captor was strong, firm.
“Sssshh”, they whispered urgently. Whoever it was said more, but the meaning of the words was lost on him. He struggled again, and they stopped briefly. A face appeared before him. Friendly, confident eyes met his as a finger waved in his face and then towards the wreckage. They eyes, set in the dark face, seemed so sure. His own eyes rolled drunkenly as he looked around, trying to get his bearings. He took in this person, noted the strong, weathered hands and strange dark clothing that ruffled and luffed in the wind. His gaze settled again on the eyes, wise and nurturing, flanked by crows feet and laugh lines. Recognition a moment of recognition flashed across both their faces, and exhaustion and pain washed over him again.

He awoke to the smell of antiseptic, blinking in the emergency room’s fluorescent glare. Cheap pop music drifted to him from the hospital lobby .He winced, feeling the sand in his eyes. Indeed, it was everywhere, in his teeth, and mixed with the blood that now congealed in his hair. He tried to sit up, but a nurse pushed him back down, muttering something under her breath as she hacked at his pants with a pair of surgical scissors. Again he tried to rise, and again she pushed him back down, this time more firmly, saying “Wait, the doctor still needs to check you out.” She went back to cutting, exposing the ugly fracture in his leg. His head was throbbing, his eyes unfocused when the doctor entered the room.
“How’d I get here?” he asked.
The doctor simply pointed towards the waiting room. A TV hung on the wall near the door. Outside, an elderly Aboriginal man was being pushed into a police cruiser, his dark clothing flying like a flag of resistance in the prairie wind. The TV flashed images of a bombed out Afghan village burning in the setting desert sun. A black burka fluttered across the screen, blown by the hot desert wind.