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how I lost the tip of my middle finger

One summer evening, high up on the 30th floor of an apartment block in downtown Chicago, I was frantically cutting strips of foam board for my architectural model. It was late at night, the night before my final review.

I took my x-acto knife in my right hand, and held the board fast with my left. And down came the blade as I pulled it through the white sheets of foam.

Faster and faster, I kept slicing. But I got careless in my haste, I pulled the blade down without shifting my left hand, and it sliced straight through the tip of my middle finger. I was in such a rush, that I didn’t even notice the missing chunk. It was only when the blood started to well and stain the white foam board that I looked down and saw the little nub of flesh stuck to the blade.

The blood started to pour and pour, a fountain of red from the tip of my middle finger.

I rushed to the bathroom and to wash the mess clean. I waited for the water to run clear, but the sink was soon overflowing with red tinged water.

I had no bandaid, so I went out of my room to find to my flatmate sitting in the kitchen.

“I’ve hurt myself and I need a band-aid!”

“Oh dear! That looks painful, but I’m sorry I can’t help you. I have only this napkin”

I took the napkin from my flatmate and wrapped it around the tingling wound, but very soon it was soaked through.

So I ventured out to the hallway and knocked on my neighbor’s door.

“Hello, so sorry to bother you, but I’ve hurt myself and I need a band-aid!”

“Oh gosh! That looks terrible, but I’m sorry I can’t help you. I have only this towel.”

I took the towel from my neighbor and wound it around my throbbing finger, but in an instant it was sopping with my blood.

Just then, the janitor stepped out of the broom closet down the hall.

“Mr. Janitor, please help! I’ve hurt myself and I need a band-aid!”

“Oh golly! What a mess, but I’m sorry I can’t help you. I only have this bucket.”

I held the janitor’s mop bucket under my bleeding hand, but in only a moment it had filled up to the brim.

Getting desperate, I took the elevator down to the ground floor and went to the security guard at his desk.

“Please! I’ve hurt myself! I really need an bandaid!”

“Oh wow! That’s a lot of blood. I do have a first-aid kit here, but who are you? I need to see some ID to confirm you’re a resident.”

So I took the elevator back up to the 30th floor and stumbled down the hall, past the broom closet, past my neighbor, past my kitchen and into my room to grab my ID. Then, I went back down the corridor but the busy elevator had not waited patiently for my return. I angrily pressed the button until it made its way up to me and my endless fountain of blood.

It finally arrived on the 30th floor, and in I went, clutching my gushing finger.

29…

28…

27…

The endless spurts of blood cascaded down my arm.

18…

17…

16…

Down, and down and down…

3…

2…

1…

The elevator finally came to a halt at the ground floor, but as the doors opened, I still seemed to be going down… down… down to the ground, sinking into darkness.

—-

When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed. A nurse came to me and said,

“Hi there! You’ve hurt yourself, and need some rest, but you’ll be alright!”

“Where am I? WHO am I? What happened tonight?”

“Well… that’s to be expected with such a concussion so severe…”

“I just hurt my finger, not my head! So what am I doing here?”

And so the nurse told me how I lost gallons of blood till I ran dry.

That’s when I fell faint, and that’s the reason why,

The guard called the ambulance and they took me away,

And now I was being treated well, enjoying my hospital stay.

The next morning to my final review I still had to go,

And when they demanded why I had nothing to show,

I raised up my left hand and clenched it tight,

My middle finger was thickly bandaged with gauze, clean and sparkling white.

Man with the Chips.

In the beginning, there was darkness. And then, a few friends of mine decided to make a fire. There became some light, barely enough to see each other's faces in.

A large man walked towards us from a distance, holding our attention as he waded his way through the shrubbery.

Upon his arrival at our little fire, there was chatter, and an ease from the emptiness of the woods. "I remember you from this class", one said to him. "Oh yes, we had smoked a cigarette here earlier", said another. I, for one, had never seen this guy before in my life.

And yet, it was to be that he would cast a spell upon us. Just as I started to sink into the darkness, he pulled out a packet of Cheetos from his jacket pocket and spoke loudly, "Does anyone want any chips?" I looked at him in shock, and less colder. I had never seen a person fit a packet of chips in their pockets before. disillusioned. How could a man who had come from the blue be this generous? How have chips gotten this small?

"Wash it down with this diet Coke" he followed. "My man!" I exhaled. I turned to my friend in delight,

"Does it get any better than this?".

"Coke Zero people would never know" he said.

And just then, as I tried to think of the taste of Coke Zero and its difference from Diet Coke, I couldn't remember its taste. I thought if I could think of its colour - its black colour, its many bubbles, I would remember, but I still couldn't.

And then I tried remembering anything at all, of before the fire, of before the man with the chips, before Diet Coke, I couldn't, I can't, and I don't mind for now.