Chapter Five – Part 6
Chuck froze for a few long seconds before he registered what had happened. He had actually gotten to apologizing to the bitch, and he had never apologized to anyone in his fucking life—
And, goddamn it all, it wasn't enough.
He stood at the top of the library stairs, looking at her, thinking he might actually get to talk to her at least. And, suddenly, she yanked the notebook out of his hand.
The notebook tore out of his grasp as if it was welded to the back of an accelerating semi. It was so fast that he barely felt the spiral binding catch in the meat of his hand. It left a thin, ragged gash across his palm.The shock of it immobilized him.
A piece of the notebook's red cover floated to the ground.
Chuck looked up from his hand.
"Hell yes, there are hard feelings," she said. Then she turned her back on him and walked away.
Little miss perfect said "Hell," Chuck managed to think. "Hey—" he began to say.
Then he felt his hand.
"Oh shit!" Awareness of the injury slammed into him like an out‑of‑control bus. The pain vibrated his arm and he had to grab his wrist with his other hand to stop the shaking. In the brief time he had looked away from the wound, his hand had pooled with enough blood to spill through his fingers and splatter on the ground.
Chuck staggered back from the sight, slamming backwards through the doors to the library. The pain was triggering a headache, a bad one. As bad as the pain in his hand. Rainbow auras wrapped around the library's fluorescent lights, and sounds rang with reverberating echoes that shook apart the back of his skull.
Blood from his hand was going everywhere; his arm, pants, the floor of the library.
"The bitch cut me!" He yelled. "The bitch cut my fucking hand!"
Dozens of people were surrounding him, yelling, talking. . .
Thinking.
One of the interns at the checkout desk said, "Oh god! Diane, call 911 «view of himself from across the checkout desk, mental voice, please, jesus let him be all right. our father who art in»"
An old librarian held back a tide of children off in the kid's section. "No, everyone back. «view from inside the kid's section. frantic glances behind at twenty or so storytime kids. six to eight years old. storytime forgotten. don't let the children see this. that boy has got to be on drugs. what are their parents going to think?»"
"Oh gross. «view from behind the skirts of the librarian worried about parents. old lady smell and eyes are close to the ground. everything seems much too large. hallucinogenicly large. man's hurt. that real blood. will they let us see the am‑blance. iwanna see. maybe he's in a gang. police too? iwanna see police too»"
People began running toward him. Chuck felt almost fully disconnected from his body now. Prismatic colors washed out his vision when he was seeing through his own eyes, and his own ears were hearing voices as if he was in the bottom of a well. His throbbing hand was distant, like his own heartbeat, and he was only dimly away of the fact he was on his knees cradling it. A pool of blood had formed below him.
A man in a suit ran up to him. He was the first to reach him. He tore off his tie. «blood, oh fuck. too much blood. its it venous or arterial— oh damn. just get pressure on the thing. where is that damn ambulance. hope this kid ain't doped on anything. should have stuck with med school. forgotten everything by now. no too tight. stop the bleeding, not lose the hand. god his color sucks. how much has he lost? where're the fucking paramedics?» The man's tie clamped on to his hand with a fiery grip.
Chuck realized that he was yelling at everyone.
"Get out of my fucking head!"
«gee, that's chuck wilson. oh wait till I tell kelly about»
«that guy is hopped to the gills. probably did it to himself»
«i hate blood»
«where's the fucking ambulance»
«and deliver us from evil»
Chuck rocked back and forth on his knees, looking at the crowd around him. None of them really gave a shit about him. He was just some sort of goddamned spectacle. He felt his vision giving out, turning dim at the edges. As he swayed, he saw David Greenbaum at the top of the stairs at the end of the lobby.
«allie did that?»
"Damn straight she did, you fucking geek."
Chuck fell over, losing consciousness.
