Taking a Taxi

A small man arrived, I use small as a base description for his arms defied this, one could see his hands, slightly curled, hanging somewhere by his knees in orangutan mimicry.  He seemed cheerful enough.  We clambered into his 1978 Toyota Carolla and watched, enthralled, as he slouched with infinite ease behind the drivers wheel.  He had to hunch his head, not so that he would fit, for as I have already mentioned he was a short man.  No, I think it was merely to enable his shoulders to rise, like a counterbalance, into action.

He steered with his forearms.  Hands, beyond the reach of the padded wheel, hanging with bent fingers.  In my mind I could hear them crying for a banana from their silent clutch, so strong was this feeling that I wanted to call stop and purchase him one from a local stall, just so I could see those dexterous fingers peel away, with primate precision, the sturdy yellow skin.  I could not however imagine how, with the standard amount of joints, he would present his mouth with the pale fruit inside.

In a pondering fashion he drove and I thought.

We crashed and I was not surprised, but even if I had been it would not have lasted long for I lost consciousness, and therefore thought, as I lay on the road.  My last vision was the slowly dulling eyes of a large cow; we were sprawled like lovers on black sheets and I remember thinking,

“We are both victims in this. I of my careless long armed driver and you of God; what pray is the point of being sacred if you die so needlessly.  Surely a degree of divine protection is owed?”

“Rest easy”, I breathed and blacked out.

*

I wake on clean bed linen in a clean room; I was in Nepal and so this alone proves that things were not as they should be.  A rather attractive nurse approaches.  Ahh, a hospital, the crash, the cow, it could after-all make sense.  I summon a smile, for her pretty crystal blue eyes certainly deserve it.

“Did the cow make it?  Or at least did someone stay with her? She looked like she was dying and she looked lonely.  Death should not be lonely and yet she appeared abandoned by God in death and therefore at some point in life.  God I hate him. God, I hate him.”

Passionate tears well in my eyes.  The nurse answers in a language I do not understand but she smiles sweetly and so I am reassured.  Then in perfect, harmonious English she says;

“The orangutan has been taken back to the zoo, I don’t think he’ll be allowed to drive again.”

I find I can’t speak, what afterall can be said?  She gently rolls me from my back to my side and I am submissive, almost weightless to her touch.  With a mix of surprise and then relief I see the cow in the next bed along.  Her eyes are open and absolutely bottomless, cosmology embraced, I am sure.  Her hind leg is bandaged white and an intricate array of cloth decorates her head.  I think she smiles, perhaps forced through pain.  A sharp stab in my rear, like a particularly aggressive hornet.  My eyes water again this time blurring my cow-friend.

“Rest easy”, she breathed and I blacked out.

*

There is a long beep and it annoys me, I want to sleep but open my eyes for it is incessant.  I am sat cross legged on a cloud and have a strange desire to lament upon lost daffodils, curiously I look around and the beautiful nurse is clothed in a pretty blue dress with white clouds on.  The clouds move.  With yoga like perfection she is sat beside me, I feel ungraceful merely by comparison.  Still smiling she looks at me and lifts a finger to her lips, commanding the continuation of silence before returning an attentive gaze to the scene before us. 

 It is the first time I notice.

A 1978 Toyota Corolla is being driven by a man with exceptionally long arms.  My friend sits behind him, eagerly absorbing the culture around.  I am not fully visible but I know I sit on the central rear seat, shadowed from he sun which has blistered my nose, lending the appearance of an alcoholic.

There are a number of things that this new external perspective allows me to see.  In the distance just beyond a small rise there is a cow with amazing eyes, she is licking the rather bristly head of her calf, encouraging her to rise from the stumble and fall she has just taken.

On the right hand side of the road there are the most splendid array of banana stalls.  They look positively ravishing and my mouth waters at their sight, I find myself compelled to reach out and collect a bunch.  At this very thought a firm hand settles on my shoulder, the nurses delicate fingers are enough to settle my lust and stay.

I notice the driver, enraptured by the bananas and while so engaged drives straight into the cow.  She has been staring directly at the car since it came into view, engine roaring, never moving.  She is brave.  The car stops dead, killed by her inertia, the driver rebounds off his wheel and slumps unconscious and bloody faced.  My friend shatters through the windscreen and lands badly, the way his body crumples makes my stomach turn and I am sad for I know he is dead, killed by his momentum.  

Before his body has even landed I am also flying through the freshly smashed windscreen.  I obviously have no flight control but miraculously hit the fallen cow before rolling to the ground besides her.

I blacked out before, and then after, she died.