Level: Observer

About 2030 AD
Sabrina sat up in bed and opened her eyes. An excruciating bolt of pain shot up her left leg, up the left side of her ribs and exploded somewhere near her heart, making her scream.
A nutrient and fluid drip apparatus swung crazily from the stand ‘thing,’ which shook from her violent motion. She knew what the apparatus did, but not where she was. Everything seemed too bright and clean, and menacing. Medical apparatus hemmed in her bed, and a curtain sealed the whole assembly off from the rest of the world. If there was still a world.
I remember now. Oh God! The accident. No! Don’t let it be true!
But the pain came from her leg. Maybe her memory played tricks. Maybe she still had a leg. She didn’t want to look, but she had to. Slowly her eyes crawled across the linen, like nervous soldiers, to the flat bed sheets where her lower leg should have been.
“It’s gone!” she murmured through heaving gasps. “Put the fuckin’ light out!” she wanted to scream. “I don’t want to see anything anymore.”
But somehow, she knew it was the middle of the night and no nurse would come unless she pressed the button near her left elbow and she didn’t want to make a fuss. She remembered a dream, in which somebody told her:
“You will be sedated for the first 24 hours and on a fluid and nutrient drip for 3 days. After that you will begin to feel better. Try not to worry, and rest. At least you are alive. That is something. That should be enough for now dear.”
“Yes, that is something,” she remembered herself chanting silently.
But the curtain around her world seemed to shimmer and she lost her train of thought completely.
She drifted back into sedated unconsciousness.

---

When next she awoke, Sabrina began to remember the accident.
At first, she could only hear a woman screaming at the sight of living gore on Islington Green and thought it must be herself. Sabrina felt dizzy and couldn’t see at all. She felt sure that she lay on her back, because whatever she lay on felt as hard as concrete.
She had been riding her bicycle to buy a Christmas present for her mother in one of the tiny antiques stalls, when a puddle at traffic lights distracted her. She knew she should be able to see reflections of buildings and the traffic lights in the puddle, but she could only see a pale, yellow glow in the inky blackness. She stared at the water, trying to understand what her eyes were telling her. Then the lights changed. She pulled away and glanced at a pedestrian on the pavement, who stared at her. When Sabrina saw that instead of eyeballs, he had empty sockets, black as deep space, she screamed in horror and lost control of the bicycle.
A truck radiator grill had been the last thing she had seen before she went down and everything went black.
Only it wasn’t really black, but like white noise. She could feel something warm and wet, pooling around her thigh, but could feel no more than that. The sensation felt pleasant, like getting into a warm bath.
“Step back! I’m a first-aider!” a deep voice shouted. “Has somebody called an ambulance? Call them now.”
Another voice cried out, “I can’t believe she’s still alive!”
A few drivers honked their horns impatiently
A female voice spoke uncertainly into a mobile phone:
“Yes. Traffic accident on Islington Green. A woman on a bicycle. Yes, it’s very bad. Her leg is … . No, she is still conscious. No, her head looks okay. Wait. Can you hear me dear?”
“What?” Sabrina mumbled when a hand touched her shoulder.
“What is your name?”
“Sabrina MacIntyre. Sabrina Theresa MacIntyre.”
“Yes. She knows her name. But she is losing a lot of blood. Come quickly! Oh … . Yes, I will stay calm. Yes. There is a first-aider here. He is applying pressure to the … what do you call it? Yes, artery. Thanks. They are coming dear. Hang on. Can we put something under her head?”
Somebody lifted her head and lowered it onto something soft.
When Sabrina came round, she could hear an ambulance siren wailing and man squeezed her hand, saying:
“Hello Sabrina. We are near The Royal London Hospital. You’re going to be fine. You just had a little accident.”
Her next memory was of waking in bed and being told about the drip. She recalled all this over and over again and with increasing clarity while she waited for her first visit. A familiar face appeared round the door. Her mother’s same luscious black hair had now turned completely grey. Her face wrinkled into a strange parody of her daughter’s beauty, looked as translucent as a light bulb, radiating fear. Sabrina’s tall and craggy father came behind, supported his wife, as if that role would be easier than looking at his daughter.
“Oh my darling!” Mrs MacIntyre said, touching her daughter’s hand. “We couldn’t come sooner. They wouldn’t let us. We have been worrying so much!” the feathers on her blue quivered slightly.
“Dear. Remember?” Mr MacIntyre whispered.
“Yes. Sorry. You don’t look too bad,” Mrs Macintyre continued. “Are they feeding you well?”
Sabrina struggled to form words in her dry throat, but only managed:
“Drip.”
“Oh well,” her father replied. “I wouldn’t mind one of those, if it had whiskey in it!”
Sabrina forced a weak smile for the sake of her parents.
“They say you will be home in about another ten days’ time,” her mother said brightly. “We are preparing everything for you, as the hospital has requested. I telephoned the Institute and they say your medical insurance covers everything and that you don’t have to worry about your job. They asked if they could send flowers and a card and I agreed. I am surprised they’re not here?”
A nurse poked her head round the door and then pulled it back again.
“I think we have just five more minutes Bri,” her mother said, holding back a tear.
“Darling!” Sabrina’s father commanded.
“Oh! I can’t help it. My poor baby.”
Sabrina roused herself for one all-out effort and said:
“I’m fine mum! I feel lucky to be alive.”
“Yes! Yes!” her mother managed, between sobs. “We must be grateful. It could have been so much worse!”
“When you come home you can just relax and not worry about anything! Anything at all!” her father suggested. “And now I’m retired, we can watch some old black and movies, like we used to. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Sabrina nodded.
“Good. Well, I think it’s time to say good bye. We will be back tomorrow,” Mr MacIntyre said. “Good job we’re so close!”
“Yes. Goodbye baby,” her mother said. “I know we don’t say it enough, but we love you very much.” Mrs MacIntyre squeezed her daughter’s arm and stood back, as if waiting for something prearranged. Sabrina’s father coughed once and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, something he hadn’t done since she was a baby.
“Good bye Woopie!”
Sabrina smiled. She hadn’t heard her nickname for almost as long.

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