FOOTNOTES - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

FOOTNOTES

The driver parked a lorry on her foot. She hadn’t been standing long. She was just, you might say, collecting her thoughts, when the lorry was suddenly there, on her foot. Not the whole foot, let us say at once in the cause of exactitude, but a good deal of it, including all the toes.

She felt pain of course – my goodness yes – but the initial sensation was mixed with astonishment at the unexpectedness of what had happened and with the academic registering of the crunch, crunch of the bones under the weight and motion of the lorry.

Her mouth opened so wide in an involuntary eldritch scream that it felt as if the top of her head had blown off.

Perhaps the lorry driver was rather deaf, and maybe he suffered from visual impairment at times: at any rate he failed to notice her or her screams. He appeared to satisfy himself that the lorry was not an obstruction to other motorists, secured his vehicle and walked away, whistling, with his hands in his pockets.

Her screams were succeeded by tears. She had dropped her shopping bag and handbag and she desperately wanted to lie down as she felt so weak, partly with the pain, partly from the loss of blood and partly at the sight of her blood – running away down a convenient grating. But the very slightest movement increased the agonising discomfort. The problem was temporarily solved by her fainting. When she recovered consciousness she was lying down and felt no desire to get up.

She called for assistance.

“Sorry, dear. It’s nothing to do with me. I don’t live round ‘ere. I’ve only come on a cheap day return.”

A policeman arrived.

“No, Madam, I cannot move the lorry. I do not have the keys. I do not have the owner’s permission and I do not have a Heavy Goods Vehicle licence. Anyway it isn’t causing an obstruction or anything. You shouldn’t have allowed him to drive over your foot. I certainly wouldn’t allow anyone to park on my feet – they’re less important to a woman, of course.”

“He may be back soon. Probably just gone for his lunch. Have you got a library book with you? You could be reading it to pass the time while you’re waiting for him and it’ll take you mind off your foot.”

“Talk sense! I don’t want to take my mind off my foot. I want someone to take the lorry off my foot! Can’t you call the fire-brigade?”

“Oh I can’t call them, Madam. It isn’t a fire. And it might prevent them from dealing with a sudden emergency.”

“But this is an emergency!”

“Now let’s get this into proportion, Madam. It’s only a foot. It’s not like people possibly burning to death in a blazing building, is it? You must see that.”

“GET THE LORRY OFF MY FOOT!”

“Don’t you think you’re being melodramatic, Madam? You’re obsessed with lorries and feet, aren’t you? We did a bit of psychology on our course. I bet you’re a foot fetishist! Go on, admit it!”

“Imbecile! I never normally think of lorries or feet. I can’t think of anything else now that the one is parked on the other.”

He fetched a doctor.

“Give me morphine and get me to hospital, doctor!” Her voice was strident.

“Don’t try to tell me my job, young lady. I make my own diagnoses, thank you. You are clearly hysterical. Here’s a prescription for tranquillisers. Take three a day and you’ll soon see your problems in a different light.”

She died an hour later.

The police officer was reprimanded for his failure to secure an arrest – of the bleeding, that is.

Margaret Wilde © 1985