OhSam Triple Play 2016!
It's November 2, an auspicious (if ominous) day for our darling Sam, so to herald his introduction to The Red Stuff, let's revisit an annual tradition. Welcome to the OhSam Triple Play 2016! This year, we're offering a focus on a reoccurring theme in Sam's life: blood"Blood" could be interpreted in many ways. Family don't end with blood. The demon
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When he comes round he’s still lying on the floor, though somebody’s arranged him in the recovery position. The lecture theatre is emptying. The stragglers stare at him over their shoulders as they hurry past. “Sam,” says a voice, disembodied and distant; and Stephen, his study buddy on this politics course, looms over him from nowhere, blinking anxious and scared.
Sam’s mouth tastes of vomit and the air smells of blood. He scrabbles for a hand-hold, tries to sit up, but the wooden floor is slippery and the jolt to his leg sets off a pain so sharp that he’s grateful to fall back again.
There’s the hollow sound of a pair of high heels and Professor Childs looks over him, crouches down to get close. “There’s an ambulance on its way,” she says.
“No,” says Sam, and he lifts a hand to scrub at his face, try to get himself together. His fingers are trembling violently, setting off a shiver that racks through his whole body. “I’m okay,” he says.
“You’re bleeding all over the floor,” says Stephen tightly.
“Sorry,” Sam says. He looks up at Professor Childs, upside-down behind his head. “I was… I didn’t want to be late for class.”
She frowns. “I dread to think,” she says, “what happened to keep you away from my previous classes, Sam.”
He’s not sure if she’s joking. Even stringing her words together for sense is proving difficult. All the elements of what Sam’s seeing have started to jumble together oddly, Stephen’s face shifting and rearranging like a puzzle. Like a Picasso. Oh shit. Jess is going to kill him if she finds out about this.
“… happened, Sam?” Stephen is saying.
“A dog,” Sam says. It’s not plausible, not really; won’t hold together once they get him to hospital and cut open his jeans. But if he’s adamant enough about it, what else are they gonna say? Mountain lion? Bear? Neither is likely, downtown.
“The fuck did you do to it?” Stephen says; and then, absurdly, “You love dogs!”
Sam laughs, although the sound tails off into a wheeze as the movement begins to hurt. Then the clash of the double doors of the hall, and voices, the rattly wheels of a gurney.
“Okay,” says a voice, and there are hands underneath him, the room lurching as he’s lifted and set down.
“I’ll go with him,” says Stephen. Sam wants to say, don’t worry, but actually the thought of somebody familiar at his side is unbearably tempting.
The medics roll him along to the elevator. While they are waiting, there’s a hand on Sam’s arm, and he opens his eyes to find meet the professor’s serious gaze. “Send me an email when you’re better, Sam,” she says. “We’ll work something out.” She shakes her head. “There’s no point killing yourself over this class.”
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An image of the chupacabra swims into his mind, its hairless body crumpled in its fresh-dirt grave. Sam thinks about the weight of the earth, packed damp and solid around it; thinks about the soil clogging its airways, its nose and throat. He feels like that sometimes, like he’s struggling to breathe through something thicker than air.
“It’s okay,” says Stephen, and he’s walking beside Sam as the trolley rattles its way out of the door. His fingers, dry and warm, find Sam’s; and he squeezes Sam’s hand reassuringly.
“Yeah,” says Sam. He’s still calculating, the overstuffed hours hanging oppressively over his head. He’ll just have to. He can take his laptop to work, next week, can swap his afternoons for night shifts which are usually quieter and try to make up the classwork he’s gonna miss the next couple of days. And if he puts off seeing Jess next week as well, that gives him an extra evening as well as time for his leg to heal. He doesn’t want to miss seeing her, has cancelled on her too many times, but in making the plan he feels a space start to clear in his mind. It’s an air pocket. He can do it. He can breathe. Head above the water. “It’s okay,” he says.
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Sam thoughts as he struggling to deal with his life at Stanford ring so true to me; he's idolized this future of normal, but in reality, it's still hard and in similar ways.
Thank you so very much for filling the prompt so wonderfully! Take care :)
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I guess it is easy to infer based on the fact that aside from the trials he always seems to go on no sleep!
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