It was 2:32 am, according to my ipod touch, when I awoke. I couldn’t tell if it was the pressing need to go to the bathroom or the loud thumping and muffled yelling that had done it first. There was a faint light glowing at the base of the door, so I knew someone had turned the kitchen light on. I reasoned it was our flat-mate, and because I was worried I would give him a scare by seeing my 3-am face and out-of-control mop of hair, I tried to wait it out, listen for the light to go off and whomever it was to wander back to bed. I waited, and waited, not hearing anything but silence, and I couldn’t take it. I propped open the door, and the glowing light from the kitchen filled out living room and stung my eyes as I poked my head around the bedroom door, peeking into the kitchen. And that’s when I saw Sid Vicious lying face down on the floor, right outside our door.
We had gotten invited to a Halloween shin-dig that some fellow Halloween-loving American down the road was putting on. It was a bit late in the game, and after a week, Chad and I still hadn’t come up with any fantastic low-cost ideas for costumes to fit the theme: 80’s horror. It didn’t help that it was our last week at Repat, and our last week before our enormous Flinders Site Profile was due. So, alas, we said farewell as the flat-mate headed out the door dressed in suspenders, rolled up jeans, and a spraypainted tee, reeking of hairspray and gel. We’d spent the last hour listening to muffled Sex Pistols songs as he channeled the “Sid Vicious” character he was dressed as.
Sulking and second-guessing our choice to not go, Chad and I nestled down with some chicken tacos and an awful rented movie called “The Living Wake”, which taught us that just because Jim Gaffigan is in something doesn’t mean it’s good. And then we called it a night.
At first glance, after seeing our flat-mate face planted into the floor at 2:32, I reasoned he was simply too pissed when he got home, had fallen (explaining the yelling), and passed out on the floor. I sat back down on the edge of the bed, and looked at Chad. “What?” he asked, and I told him about Sid. We laughed, and pondered what to do about making it to the bathroom.
We decided to think of other things, and crawled back into the warmth of the covers, before Chad happened to say “I hope he’s OK…he’s laying kind of funny” to which I responded “Maybe you should go check that he’s not lying in a pool of blood” joking that he may have hit his head when he fell. It’s a good thing that at this point, Chad did in fact go check on him.
I heard some mumbling from both Chad and Mr. Vicious, and couldn’t resist going out to check the scene. My jaw dropped when I realized the scope of the situation. Chad was crouched down, looking at our flat-mate’s hand, which was caked with blood. There was a dark broad trail of maroon dots splashed over the entire floor. The counter was coated in blood, the pots and pans were decorated with polka dots, and a rolls of paper towels was doused with coppery-tinged water. As we walked to the bathroom, we saw the trail continued in from the front door.
In amazement at the sight, we told our flat-mate we had to take him to the hospital. The blood was from a gash on his hand, and it obviously needed attention – not to mention some fluids from all the blood loss. As we walked out the door, we saw that the trail continued – and you could convince yourself that someone had been stabbed and was running from a serial killer if you wanted to. Very Halloween.
After leaving him in the care of a couple nurses who made it quite clear they were tired of patients for the night, we came home to try and clean up the trauma scene, and tried to catch a couple final hours of sleep.
The next morning, we awoke in disbelief of what had happened a mere few hours earlier. Our flat-mate had asked if we could bring him a few things, and we took our time to get dressed and ready. We lucked out at this point as well – as we were getting ready to walk out the door, I went to grab the mail and the good ol’ red and blue pulled up and hopped out of the car. I couldn’t help but laugh, as I told them “ yea, I thought this might happen”. Someone had seen a trail of blood outside their house, and called it in. They had followed it to our house.
It’s amazing to think how far our flat-mate walked home, after falling and cutting himself so badly. And I’m REALLY glad that we ended up checking on him! Who knew that our first trauma would be not at a hospital, but at our own house?!!
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