IAN O'DOWD
He wakes to a ceiling he does not recognise.
For several seconds there is only white light, the faint electronic pulse of a monitor, and the pressure of something taped across the back of his hand. Then pain arrives in separate places: chest, shoulder, temple, ribs. Each ache seems to belong to a different memory.
He tries to sit up.
The room tilts.
“Easy,” a nurse says from somewhere to his left.
He lies back and waits for the ceiling to settle.
There was a road. Headlights. A sound too large to fit inside a single second.
After that, pieces.
He remembers blue light moving across broken glass. He remembers being asked his name and being absurdly relieved that he knew it. He remembers the ambulance doors closing before anyone answered the question he had not managed to finish.
His phone sits in a clear plastic bag on the cabinet beside him. The screen is dark. Even from the bed it looks crowded with things he does not want to read.
The nurse checks the monitor, asks him his name again, then the date.
“Close enough,” she says when he hesitates.
“The other car?”
Her expression changes by less than a degree.
“Someone will speak to you.”
It is not an answer, which means it is one.