Self-Pity

The silence was deafening. Then came the sound of blood rushing in his ears, his heart thumping, and his own laboured breathing. These internal noises faded as he tuned in to the sounds around him; moaning, wailing, calling out. Ricardo felt knocked about, maybe even bruised – but as he dared to lift each arm and leg in turn, nothing on his copious anatomy hurt enough to suggest something was broken or fractured.

Sitting up slowly, he ran a hand over his number two haircut, and down the goatee he’d grown to give the impression he had a jawline. As he regained his focus and orientation, a disturbing scene unfurled before his small blue eyes. Bodies lay strewn in and around the tour bus, which had ejected a few of its passengers during an unscheduled off road journey, before coming to rest on its side. Some of the bodies were moving, others were still. He was glad he didn’t know any first aid skills; he had no intention of volunteering to help anyone. Other people could help the injured, and the dead were dead so too bad. He didn’t want to help in any way, but what if helping somehow was the only wat to get home? Ricardo gave a heavy sigh of self-pity at this inconvenience.

Damn it, what made me ever think this God-awful bus tour into nowhere would be a good social exercise? Focus Rick, keep clam. Don’t want to draw any attention to myself; someone might want me to help out of they see I’m not injured. Maybe I should pretend to be unconscious until we’re rescued. I could spend the time dreaming about that blonde hottie in the yellow dress in the seat across from me. Can’t see her now. I wonder if she’s still in one piece?

He turned at a noise close behind him. There was that lanky youth with long scraggly brown hair from the seat in front of him. What a freak he looked like now. One lens from the boy’s pebble glasses had a crack through it, and blood had dripped down his face from a gash above his eyebrow. The T-shirt he had on advertised he was a Black Sabbath fan. The boy got unsteadily to his feet, took his time to get himself together, and then looked around. He looked directly at Ricardo – so too late to play possum now. Rick averted his small-eyed stare in the hopes of avoiding any exchange. When Ricardo looked back, the youth was taking it all in, surveying the situation, before he made his way to the front of the upturned bus, disappearing behind where the driver sat. He was there a long time. Ricardo heard him poking around, letting out the odd expletive. Rick had no intention of going to see what he was up to, in case he was needed somehow. He couldn’t possibly help anyone - he was too traumatised to help out.

The Sabbath fan finally emerged with a box in his hands and he climbed through the front door which hung open. Sitting down with this back against the roof of the tour bus, he commenced tinkering with what Ricardo could now see was the bus’s C.B unit. Eventually heaving himself to his feet, the large man gave a heavy sigh of self-pity at this inconvenience, and forced himself to go over.

“I hope you know how to fix that” he said to the boy. The youth glanced up briefly, before continuing on with his project.

“There’s no cell phone reception out here. It’s gonna be a long walk back to civilisation if I can’t, man.”

Rick didn’t exactly relish the thought of walking any great distance. “Is the driver still in there?”

“In body, but not in spirit.”

“You mean he’s dead?”

“Yeah, man. Him and the tour guide have made their last stop.”

Ricardo felt himself sweat all over, knowing the only two people who were probably of any use were both dead. And dead just a few feet away from him. He really wanted to be a million miles away from this mess, having a beer and sharing a bowl of nachos with some pretty young thing. This crash was such an inconvenience.

“Damn it!” Sabbath’s exclamation startled Rick back into the here and now. The boy put the unit aside, bowing his head into his hands.

“Unfixable?” Ricardo guessed.

“Fully fixable. Just absolutely no fffff….. use without the hand piece.”

Ricardo looked the situation over. People were helping the injured. Good. That was a role he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in immersing himself in. He was keen, however, for old four-eyes to fix the C.B unit, so that someone would come and rescue him from this hell hole. Rick surveyed the path the bus had taken after it’d left the road and freewheeled down the gulley, where they were now.

“Well, if it was attached before we left the road up the top there then it must be somewhere between here and there,” Ricardo surmised.

The boy looked up to the top of the gully. Pushing his damaged glasses back up his nose, he got up again.

“Good thinking. We should take a good look around down here first. I’m Anthony,” he added.

“Ricardo,” the heavier man replied. He didn’t extend his hand. Anthony’s hands had dirt and blood on them and he didn’t want someone else’s germs. The boy began scouring the ground around the bus, pushing the odd piece of debris aside with the dusty toe of his Doc Marten boot. A while later he looked up, brown eyes meeting blue.

“You know, man, we could find this in half the time if you were actually helping.”

Rick bowled his eyes. It’s not like he’d had an easy day of it today; he’d been in a bus crash and his stomach was grumbling and now he was forced to look for something he didn’t even want to look for. He sighed once more in self-pity and began looking around. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, not that old four-eyes need to know that. At least if he looked like he was doing something useful people would leave him alone.

From behind him came the distressed cries of a woman. With birds-nest hair and deep shock in her eyes, the hottie in the yellow dress came stumbling towards him, one high heel on, the other foot bloody and bare. She reached out for him, but Ricardo avoided her gaze and backed out of her path; there was no way he was interested in her now she was injured and had clearly lost the plot. He moved away and pretended to keep looking for whatever he was meant to be looking for. She limped past him, and staggered through the greenery before clambering up the bank. As she scrambled upwards, a loose rock dislodged and bounced down the bank. It rebounded off another rock and as Ricardo turned see what the noise was, it struck him square on the temple. His large frame hit the dirt, dark blood pooling around his head. He watched four eyes hold up the hand-set he’d just found. They would be rescued after all, and Ricardo hadn’t needed to help in the slightest. He drew his last breath, then gave a heavy sigh of self-pity at this inconvenience.