Within a second, with one unguarded step, Susan was lying flat on her back on the cold, hard, unyielding paving slabs and the ugly black vulture, the harbinger of pain was hovering over her, waiting to feed his voracious appetite on the agonizing shafts of pain which hit her like a whirlwind, tossing her through gigantic waves, finally plucking her body from the crest of the seething mass and dragging her down to dark boiling waters below which sucked at every bone as if to pull them out of her body. Struggling through dark mists of agony, she hears screams of desperation from afar.
“Are there other souls in torment here?” she wonders, “or are they my screams?”
She does not know. She has no time to ponder for she is fighting with fading strength with the vicious, evil-headed bird, who is bent on tearing her limb from limb. Lathered with perspiration and becoming weaker by the second, she fights the nauseating feeling with panic oozing from every pore in her body until she succumbs at last to the merciful darkness.
Faintly through lumps of black cotton wool there comes a confusion of voices, none of which she can identify. “Where does it hurt?” “Can you move your legs?” Hands touch her, soothing and comforting, yet he is still there, that evil black creature, jabbing, thrusting and battering her with his wings until she can take no more. She remembers nothing she sees nothing as she slips into the dark, black void of forgetfulness. Slowly, returning consciousness opens her eyes to the sight of white scudding clouds in a pale blue sky, and embracing branches of the tops of trees racing past the speeding vehicle carrying her prostrate and still feeling as though she is a sacrificial offering to some ancient god.
A God of pain perhaps? Yes! He is still there, the symbol of pain. Susan is certain he is in every minute of her torment. She wonders why someone doesn’t see him and drive him away. Really! They must be blind.
Susan feels herself transferred from the stretcher to bed, hands undressing her, examining her, being questioned by faint voices, looked at by blurred faces and finally laid to rest in a small, white room – and all the time he is there waiting for the kill. Susan opens her mouth to scream at him, her breath is snatched from her lips in astonishment at the sight of the bird changing into the form of a red devil with flames for a cloak and a three pronged fork in his hand, which he is raising to lunge at her. Oh! This is it; this is hell, she thinks. “Oh Lord in Heaven, help me” she begins to pray.
Susan feels a short sharp jab. Holding her breath, she waits for the next onslaught. It doesn’t come. Instead the paid begins to ease of a little and with a thankful sigh she opens her eyes. The devil has gone, so has the bird and in their place is an angel all in white, with a sweet smile on her lovely face, and in her hand a syringe. A warm comfortable glow spreads over Susan and she feels herself sinking into fluffy clouds of warm thistle down.
Thanks to Derek Brunt for letting me type this story up Linda Taylor nee Staton.
