Chapter 2

For the next few days Greg was confined to his bed with his arm suspended at his side, and his movement seriously restricted as a result.  Unable to do anything else, he was able to reflect on his life on two wheels. He was no stranger to falling off bikes of one sort or another, but this was the first time he had actually been really hurt.

From a very early age, Gregory Shephard had the bicycle dream.  From the time he was removed from the comfort of his pram, to take his first tentative steps. From the moment he realised that he had toppled backwards onto his nappy padded backside, he knew there were far more exciting and dangerous ways of falling over impressively.  A bicycle was the perfect means for achieving that goal.

His first bike, or rather tricycle, had been a well loved friend. Although his parents couldn’t afford to buy a new one at the time, what they lacked in money, his father made up for in ingenuity.  He had found an old one in fairly good condition at a local scrap merchants, he’d stripped it down and repainted it, cleaned everything up, then put it back together.  Apart from being rather old fashioned, it looked like a new trike. The one major modification Gregs dad had made was to cut off the old basket on the back because the old one was buckled and broken, he replaced it with a front opening bread bin welded in place. Once it had been painted, it looked as though it had always been there, like a little car boot, just the right size for a teddy bear companion to accompany Greg on his adventures. Granted most had been in the confines of his back garden, or the gardens of his grandparents.

 It bore the scars of some of these adventures, although it had always been well looked after by his dad. The chain was kept oiled, and it had almost always found it’s way back into the garage at night, so as not to suffer the ravages of overnight rain. There were patches of paint that had been scuffed and touched up with a fairly close match. And there were a couple of little dents in the bread bin boot, from the day a makeshift camp that he built collapsed with the trike underneath. Well loved doesn’t necessarily mean kept in pristine condition, wrapped in cotton wool and only there to admire. Well loved is well used but cared for, and that is certainly what this trike was.

Of course the time came when the trike was too small for him, and also, well – a trike which was designed for younger children. His next step was a proper bike, with stabilisers set just high enough to give him confidence, but allowing him a little sideways movement to lean. The bike had solid tyres It wasn’t long before he asked his dad to remove the stabilisers. Greg remembered with a smile as he lay in his hospital bed, the day he rode it without stabilisers.  He had been down at the local park with his mum, cycling along by the duck pond.  The path had, over the years become as wrinkled as an old mans hand, as tree roots had pushed up to mis-shape the tarmac of the path. Before the trees, the path had been a smooth flat surface, and as they approached the rooty area, his mum had asked if he wanted to get off to feed the ducks and let her push the bike for a while. Of course Greg knew best, and said he would be fine riding over the roots, then proceeded to clip one at the wrong angle and toppled over sideways, cutting his knee open and grazing his hands.

That had been Gregs first taster of bike related injury, and although nothing serious, it did instil in him a little more respect for the bike. Granted it wasn’t a great deal of respect, and that certainly wouldn’t be the last time he would tumble on the tarmac.

As he lay in his bed, Greg remembered with with a laugh the most serious accident he had had on that first bike. He was riding round the park with his school friends. By now, the tree roots were no enemy, they were there to use as little jumps. To ride at straight on, then pull up hard as he hit them, to get a little air between the path and his tyres. It was a game he loved playing with his friends, and they all dared each other to attempt bigger and faster jumps. There was one area of the park near to the swings that only the bigger children attempted on their bikes. The grassy area was broken up into three distinct terraces, the first separated by a fairly steep slope, but the next by two large concrete steps, as deep as they were wide. There was no way to ride down them, but there was a small concrete slope, about a foot wide. You couldn’t see it until you were on top of it, but if you knew exactly where it was you could ride down to the lower level safely. Few people rode down it though, for one thing it was known to be dangerous. But it was mainly because if the park keeper caught you he would give you a good telling off and threaten to tell your parents. That was incentive enough to most of the boys to be cautious.

On one particular Saturday though, they threw caution to the wind, and would ride the slopes. Two of his class mates, Richard and Andy had lined up at the top of the narrow concrete slope, to ride down it, but Gregory decided to go one better. He saw where the slope was and rode up the next terrace, so that he could get the next one at speed. Of course, he had misjudged it slightly, and as he reached the top of the slope, he realised it was not. It was the top of the steps. He barely had time to pull the brake levers, and had he not done so, he might even have cleared the steps in the most impressive jump any of them had done. As it was, he achieved a slightly less impressive skid on the grass, before his front wheel dropped off the top step, and pitched Gregory over the handlebars.  He was very lucky to have landed flat on his back on the grass below the steps. A bruised and shaken Gregory never attempted that slope again.

Gregroy was snapped back into the real world as a nurse came over to take the regular observations, and make small talk.

“So was that your first bike Greg?”  She asked

“No, it was my second one on the road, but I had a couple of little bikes before I got on the road.”  He went on to explain that although he never took part in competitions, or trials, he had owned a couple of school-boy trials bikes during his last couple of years at school.

Time went on, and with it a couple of slightly larger bikes as he grew, but nothing quite gave the same thrill as his first bike. Nothing that is until he found out that a school friend was selling a little motorbike for a couple of hundred pounds

Chapter 1

From the dawn of time, Man has wanted to fly. He watches the birds, and envies their effortless ascent into the skies, from the tiny sparrows and tits flitting about in the garden, to the majestic birds of prey, hovering around in huge circles, with barely a movement of the wings. The idea of being able to dominate and conquer the air above him, as he has dominated the ground on which he walks ,and the waters in which he swims has consumed man with a passion.

Man has strived to mimic the birds, and quickly realized that strapping on a pair of wings just wasn’t going to do the job. Icarus proved that one. The problem is that to take to the skies man needs a lot of material and machinery around him, such as an aircraft, and that takes away some of the feeling of freedom that the birds must enjoy. Even to fall slow enough to enjoy the sensation, man needs a parachute, and has little control of his movements. Yet still, he yearns for that feeling of flight.
It therefore seems incredible, that once mans ultimate dream of unhindered flight has been achieved, he suddenly yearns not to be in flight, but to be back on the motorcycle from which he was launched prior to this experience.

Don’t get me wrong that feeling of flight is still fantastic, but thrown from a motorcycle travelling at high speed suddenly stopping thanks to an oblivious car driver, the enjoyment of the flight is marred by the realization that the landing is likely to be uncontrolled and painful. For anybody that has not been involved in a life threatening accident, I don’t know if the warping of time is something you would have encountered. You may not believe this if you have not experienced it first hand.

It is in this moment of flight that we meet our main character. Gregory Shephard,  your typical 19 year old boy, travelling at about forty miles an hour leaving behind a crumpled Suzuki motorcycle embedded in the side of an old Morris Marina. He saw the car pull out of the side street, but it was far too close to do anything about it. In his head he had though of the options he could take, swerve to the left, or the right. Pull on the brakes, or throw the bike to the side and try to dive clear. Physically none of these options was possible, and the only option available was to push himself up on the footpegs and do his best to jump over the car as he hit.

That was the best he could have hoped for, and yet time had slowed right down, allowing him to experience in the minutest detail every millisecond of his flight. He noticed the shocked  face of the driver looking at him, at the drivers daughter as she flew forward from the back seat toward the windscreen. He was aware that as he was passing over the car, the cars windscreen had popped out and was erupting up toward him in a cascade of tiny nuggets. He went through the cloud of glass and noticed he was coming down face first onto the roof of the car, so put his hands out to spring clear.  One worked perfectly but he saw his left arm twist and buckle at an impossible angle.  Even in mid flight he thought “Oh well, that’s broken then.”

Then followed the heavy landing on the road, to indicate the accident was over. With legs outstretched in front of him, he landed on his backside, slid briefly and stopped.  Stunned and sitting in the middle of the road. Gregory was thankful that he had survived. It had seemed dreamlike, he had felt no pain, although he was quite aware that he had not escaped unscathed.  He looked at his left hand  first, his glove had gone, and although it appeared to be in the right position sticking out of his leather jacket, there was a lot of blood flowing. Gregory stood up and made his was unsteadily to the side of the road, where he could lean up against the metal barrier. He glanced back over to the wreckage. His bike looked as if it had been crushed to about half it’s original size. The side of the car was stoved in, and it was quiet.  He looked up the road to see a couple briskly jogging down toward him, but apart from that, nobody else seemed to be around.

As they reached him, the man took Gregory’s arm to steady him.  “OK, we saw what happened, now just sit down here” he said. “We’ve sent somebody to call an ambulance and the police.”
“I’m alright thanks” Gregory replied  “I think my arm’s broken though” He turned to the lady “I’m a bit of a mess though aren’t I?”
“A little bit” she said, which caused the man to react quite sternly  “Nurse Jones, you should know better than that, you could send him into shock”
“It’s OK”  Gregory cut in. “I sort of know”. He was aware that his face felt wet and sticky, and that when he closed his eyes it didn’t seem quite normal.  Knowing that he had gone through all that glass, he was bound to have suffered a few cuts.

More forcefully the man told Gregory to sit down. “I’m a doctor up at the hospital, so just do as I ask and you’ll be fine. Now does it hurt anywhere else?”
Of course, anywhere else it would have been incredible for the first people on the scene to be medically trained, but this happened on Hospital Hill, named because the military Hospital was just at the top.
“Well” Gregory started hesitantly, “My balls ache a bit.”
Before he could stop him, Doctor Williams had grasped the crotch of his trousers and ripped it open.
“Ohhh.” Exclaimed Gregory “I’ve only just bought this suit!”
“They were burnt through anyway, just got to check to make sure you haven’t done any serious damage.” He paused briefly, “No, it looks OK, I don’t think you’ve done any lasting damage there.”

The ambulance arrived before the police did, and Gregory was laid on a stretcher and driven the short distance up to the hospital.

If Gregory thought that his life had taken a rather odd twist when he crashed into that car, he had no idea, just how much of a change it would actually mean to him. In his naivity, he thought that the doctors would patch him up and send him back on his way the same evening. At the moment it was little more than a rather amusing distraction.  The nurses were fussing about him, asking questions, and cleaning him up.

“Let’s just take this jacket off” One of them said. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut the zip, it’s split all the way up. I’ll try to be careful of your arm.”

As she snipped away the zip, another nurse asked if there was anybody they could contact.

“Oh, yes, could you ring my friends please. We were going to a gig tonight and I’ve got the tickets.”

The nurse took down the phone number and said she would ring up, but continued. “I actually meant, can I phone your parents, to let them know.”

“Yes of course, but they’re not expecting me for a while yet. My mates are waiting for me, and need the tickets now. Is it OK to ring them first, then my mum and dad?”

She agreed and left the room, as the other nurse carefully removed the leather jacket. It was removed from the right arm first, the very gingerly slid down the left arm, to cause as little pain as possible, she then turned to place it on a chair. Although he knew it was broken, Greg was totally unprepared for what happened next. As the nurse turned his hand dropped, and with lightning reflexes, he caught it in his right hand about three inches below his arm. There was still no pain, yet the sight of his hand all but detached from his arm was very surreal.

“Erm, I think you’d better put this back please” he said, as she turned back.  She appeared to be slightly more shocked than Greg, but very quickly composed herself and carefully wrapped a bandage and padding round his wrist so that it was as close to it’s correct position as possible.

Greg was made as comfortable as possible in a ward while an operating theatre was prepared and a team of surgeons assembled. The wait also ensured that the anaesthetic did not cause any adverse reactions due to his last meal. He had been patched up enough to ensure he was out of any immediate danger.  Although it didn’t feel like it, Greg had actually escaped with relatively light injuries. Apart from his arm, which was a bit of a mess, the only other injury was a broken nose and a series of cuts of various shapes and sizes around his face from the cars windscreen.  Although one of his eyelids had been lacerated, both is eyes were undamaged, and no bones in his face had broken, not even a chipped tooth.

Greg’s parents arrived just before he had gone into surgery. His mum was distraught to start with, but was soon reassured that her only child had not been mortally wounded. He was still in a bit of a mess, but in good spirits.

“I was so worried about you Greg.” She exclaimed. “Especially after you joking about that funeral procession just before you left.”  Greg recalled the conversation earlier that evening. He came downstairs in his suit, and donning his leather jacket over the top as he came in to say goodnight to his parents. As he came in, the news was reporting on a big Gypsy wedding in London. The funeral had cost a fortune with an ornate horse drawn hearse. This was followed by hundreds of immaculately dressed travellers, then a fleet of limousines.

“I don’t want you going to all that expense when I die” he said, “just tow me down the canal on our old dinghy and drop me off to float out to sea.

Only a half hour later the phone rang,leaving Gregs mum with an uncomfortable premonition that something was wrong, even before she picked it up. She had been right to be worried, as it was the police to say Greg had been in an accident, but could give no more details than that, and that he had been rushed to the nearby hospital.

Whilst his parents were there, His friends Danny and Jim arrived to collect the tickets. They couldn’t stay long, but said they would pop back later and wished him the best.

Gregs parents also met the policeman who had been on the scene. He told them he was quite surprised by what he had seen.

“We came up the road, and saw the mangled wreckage of the bike and the car, and thought I would be scraping another motorcyclists corpse off the road. I was amazed to see him sitting on the pavement talking.” He continued. “He actually hit the hardest part of the car, right where the windscreen meets the body, it was because of that he was catapulted over the top, if he’d hit the door, he would have just be thrown into the car.”

 Late that night, a team of surgeons worked for about three hours to re-attach Gregs hand. Everything else was cleaned up and eventually, in the early hours of the morning, he was taken back to the ward and made as comfortable as it is possible to be lying on his back with one arm suspended on a metal jib.

Setting myself Targets.

Right - I've changed my mind (As is my right) and have decided to run this in the same way that John Cox / Paul Dorset is writing 'RYANN'.  I am going to try to write between 900 and 1,000 words per day and publish it here as it progresses. Unedited, and raw from my head. This first segment is a bit of a cheat actually, as I had already written the first couple of paragraphs, so I had a bit of a head start.  Please feel free to make whatever comments you like, good or bad. Best to get things right as we go along eh?

I'm actually going to try to bring this story to fruition. I know it's fiction, but a lot of the stories and anecdotes within the pages will be based on fact. A lot will not, and will be pure fiction! I have the rough bones down, but am actually enjoying writing Dorty Wee Shite at the moment. Even though I know it's really a dead end project.

Another Story

I won't actually be publishing the whole story as I write it this time. It will just be snippets and random ideas as the story progresses.