Ankle Injuries
It’s a drag being on crutches. Aside from the hassle of not being able to carry anything, I don’t like being seen walking around on them; it makes me feel like sort of a pathetic specimen. It’s intensely frustrating to need people to buy my groceries and bring me stew and jam and movies; it’s nearly as bad as being poor. But it’s also great to discover that I can count on my friends, and that I haven’t yet succeeded in alienating all humans.
So when I was at the Emergency Room getting my ankle checked out, there were two other people waiting there, both also with injuries to their left ankle. The guy to my left, in his twenties and heavyset, with short dark hair and a goatee, twisted his ankle running at UBC; on my right was a blonde athlete, tall and good-looking, who had hurt his falling down the stairs wasted at a party. Several of his frat brothers were with him, keeping him company and reminiscing. (My injury was from tennis.)
The really weird coincidence was that I’d downloaded a new album onto my mp3 player before I went to the hospital, because I’m smart like that. It was Fujiya & Miyagi’s Transparent Things; good album, reminded me a lot of The Notwist, but a little bit more upbeat and loopy. I checked the track list a few days later, and the first track on the album is called “Ankle Injuries”. Weird, huh? It’s hard to know what to make of coincidences like that, simultaneously remarkable and vacant. They don’t really mean anything, obviously, so in a sense the observation is worthless. But it also seems in some weird way like a confirmation. Of what, I have no idea. The realness of reality, maybe. I guess all you can do is shrug and say “Weird, huh?”
PS I took some pictures of my ankle, because I was fascinated by how gruesome it turned for such a nothing little stumble. And now you can be too!