By Dwayne Doble & Graphics by Ave Andrei Pizaña
We waged war against a typhoon with an umbrella.
There were three of us walking in the midst of the storm for no seemingly good reason. We just went to the 7/11 two towns over just to buy food with three umbrellas in hand in a spartan defense stance against the wind in direct opposition. We had deliberately left our phones to prevent any chance of it being drenched.
The road was barren the entire time and we’d even played it safe by waiting it out at the store before we headed back.
Still nibbling on chips we started walking back but with our “shields” on our backs this time. To be safe, we had put ourselves directly on top of the lines on the rightmost side of the four-laned road. It was blindingly dark in most parts…
Not until a flash overtook my left and my friend with it.
It was a motorcycle, a sports bike, that had collided with him from the back that had him skittering across the road several paces away from us.
Three kids were wet from rain with one drenched in blood leaking from his head.
My feet kicked into action straight towards him and I had put him over my shoulder while my friend screamed that he would run to the army station several blocks away. Leaving our means of communication behind wasn’t such a good idea after all.
I was panicking. The other friend had managed to dodge the collision by running across the road the moment the light had caught the corner of his eye was already out of sight to call for help. The other in my arms was barely conscious, with the scent of rust filling my nose and running down my arms.
The man driving the bike was still in the middle of the highway with his wheels still spinning, his helmet shattered, and his head facing down gurgling in a pool of his own blood.
Was I supposed to help him too? I couldn’t. I still had my friend to help.
I ran from store to store, but who would even be open in the midst of a tropical cyclone. Luckily, there was still one, whose cashier had run out when she saw two kids dripping from both internal and external liquids.
I was about to ask her to call an ambulance for us. With all the strength he had left, my friend had struggled with whatever he could and screamed at me not to do so. He wanted to contact his mom first.
The cashier asked for the number to dial and my head went over my elbow. He was out cold.
Fortunately, our other friend had managed to bring a rescue vehicle from the army camp, and an ambulance trailing behind with several soldiers that took our injured from my grip to put on the stretcher. The two of us hesitated getting on while the stretcher was being loaded because we didn’t know if we were allowed to.
The paramedics quickly broke that hesitation by telling us to get on and find the idiot that made the hit. We were still quite near from the original site and they lugged the unconscious man from choking on his own broken teeth onto the ambulance next to our friend.
As the responder was providing first aid to the driver, they had quickly come to realize that he was intoxicated; severely wasted even.
I wanted to punch what was left of his chompers in for what he did but morality kept me from acting it out.
In the middle of the incredibly fast, slippery, and bumpy ride to the nearest hospital, our friend had come back to his senses. Still very disoriented, he provided the medics with the means to call for his parents.
I had only blinked and we were already sitting in a provincial hospital corridor. White, stained, understaffed, and substandardly constructed. We both were stopped from entering the emergency room as “we weren’t immediate family.”
Our friend’s mother had arrived after only a few minutes of us getting there. She wasn’t panicking. Startled, yes, but in control
She didn’t even scold us for what had happened.
She just went straight into the ER and checked on her son. After, she went to us, asked us what had happened, and then her emotions had been let out like a blast of wind.
Not towards us, but to the driver at fault.
She stormed into the ER once more and started reciting every cuss there was in existence. It turns out that man was their own neighbour who was a construction worker at a site the next municipality over. She had known him to be quite the depressing sight as the driver was apparently separated from his wife and child for reasons even she didn’t know.
Maybe that’s why he was so drunk he didn’t need to be sedated for his operation.
It turns out our friend had been mildly concussed with several cuts and bruises scattered all over his body. But, overall, he was fine. His head did have to be shaved in certain parts for the scars to heal.
After making sure everything was in order, we left the hospital and his mom had sent me and the other friend home.
All I could think about was how our dumb adventure in the middle of a typhoon didn’t put us in the hospital—but a man did.
Our own kind’s war wages on with each other even when nature has already surrendered.
