NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES

On the short walk from my bus stop at work to the studio is a 20m patch of sidewalk that I’ve affectionately called the “death trap”. It’s 20m of glistening, slick, and deadly ice. Somehow that stretch of side walk got covered in melted snow, what some would call water, which then froze in the frigid temperatures. This must have been repeated time and again as the ice is nearly half an inch thick in that stretch.

To make it even better, the ice is located on an incline. When going to work, you walk uphill, so it’s easier to ensure your footing before taking a step. Traversing that death trap in the morning is still risky but at least it feels more safe than going downhill. Trying to walk down an icy hill is way worse and you’re more prone to slipping. It was so icy that I decided I wouldn’t even try to attempt it. Instead, for last week or so, I’ve been taking another bus home, located at a different bus stop. This stop is located on even ground and is just in front of the studio. It takes me to another train station and adds on another 10 to 15 minutes to my commute. I feel that is a fair trade as I don’t have to negotiate that death trap.

Today, however, I did not have the luxury of such a diversion. I had to meet a friend for dinner downtown and I needed to get home first in the quickest way possible. I decided I had to face my fears and try to carefully navigate the death trap. As I approached the danger area, bare concrete turned into a shiny and slick sheet of ice without any transition. I gingerly took my first step on the ice to gain some footing… and I immediately felt my foot slipping from underneath me. I was going down and I needed to react fast. My first instinct was to just lay my body down as quickly as possible so I spread my contact along my butt, back, and hands possibly, preventing just my tailbone or my head from hitting the sidewalk. I did a pretty good job whether by design or luck. My hands took most of the fall. I instantly felt the hard and cold ice on my palms. I was alive. It took me a second to get back up and assess if I had broken anything. I had not. I wasn’t going to risk walking on the ice anymore. Where the sidewalk ends it slopes up steeply away from the road and all the snow had been pushed up there. It would take longer but I decided to walk in the deep snow, along the sloped edge. I had to lean to the right to compensate for the sloped ground but at least I had traction. It took a while but I was able to get to the bottom of the hill without any more incidents.

When I got home, I thought I was done with any more injuries but I was wrong. After taking a pre-dinner shower, I was drying my genitals and the rest of my body in the bathtub. Somehow, the bottle of body wash I was using, slipped off the edge of the tub and fell onto my left pinkie toe, cutting it. The cut was minor but it was deep enough to draw blood and required a bandage.

I’m considering working from home tomorrow and also not showering.