It was a pretty ordinary late afternoon. I had been hanging out at the Curve Of The Earth office listening to music with some cool people and when I left I decided to stop at the Whole Foods on River Street, like I often did, before getting on the highway.
Suddenly with little warning, she lost her footing and started to fall down the stairs and was heading right towards me. I didn’t have much think to think but I reached out and she fell right into my arms. Our faces were practically touching when I asked her if she was all right. She looked stunned and shocked at the same time.
A guy was near the bottom of the stairs on his way up and said “nice catch” and that’s when I realized this could have been a pretty horrible situation. She was quite thankful and I was kind of falling in love with the idea of having this beautiful young woman thanking me and looking in my eyes. Soon she continued on her way and looked back in appreciation and smiled.
It’s hard to explain but the event gave me an amazing feeling of happiness, one that stayed with me for at least two days and put me in a really good mood.
Staircase #2
It was a beautiful November morning, unseasonably warm for Boston especially down near the Aquarium where it’s usually a little windier and chillier. I was in a fantastic mood for no specific reason, it just felt good to be out in the fresh air.
I had just driven an hour on a Sunday morning to talk to tourists about buying trolley tickets. It was one of the three jobs I was trying to hold down to pay my overdue bills. I actually liked this job. It was fun to be in the great city of Boston, which usually made me happy.
Rarely do I ever go on a trolley other than to get picked up at the office where we would meet every morning and to get dropped off at a specific location like Faneuil Hall. Today I was working down at the Aquarium where a trolley is usually always parked.
We needed maps to give out to people and there was a box of them on the Trolley so I went up the four or five steps to get a box and as I was coming down the stairs, I am not sure how but I lost my footing. For a split second, I felt airborne and wasn’t sure where I was going to land and then..THUD…I hit the stairs on my back and my head and slid down to the sidewalk. The pain in my back was like no other pain than I had ever felt and I could barely breathe. One of my fellow employees Shawn was on the Trolley at the time and immediately came down and put his hand behind my head and told me to breathe. I was trying but it seemed like no air was coming in. I heard voices asking, “What happened?” “Is he alright?” “Is he having a heart attack?” This was the beginning of a long 15-minute wait for an ambulance to arrive.
When the ambulance did arrive, they were asking me questions but I could barely answer them because it was hard to talk. I tried to but nothing would come out. The pain was so intense in my back that I barely could feel the huge lump on the back of my head. When the ambulance people asked me to straighten my legs, it was so hard to do, but they told me I had to. The next few minutes were worst that the previous fifteen. It seemed to take forever but I was on a stretcher and in the ambulance. Every bump in the road hurt as the siren rang and we headed towards a hospital which moments later I realized was Mass General.
I was soon in the emergency room with an IV in my arm and all I remember after that was closing my eyes and seeing nothing but green. It was so surreal and suddenly I didn’t feel anything and was able to talk so I asked the nurse why I was seeing green and she said, “You are on morphine young man”. It was so great to be relieved from that pain but before long it was back.
They took me to get X-Rays, which created more discomfort and pain but soon there was more Morphine and I was seeing, green again. I heard one of the nurses say that my ribs were broken so I asked her and she said that I had three broken ribs and I was probably going to be admitted, which I was.
I spent the next two days at Mass General getting the best treatment around and it seemed like everything was getting better so I was released. Unfortunately the next week at home trying to take care of myself was brutal but I survived.
There you have it, two tales on a staircase, so different, so real.
by Steev Riccardo
