Dizzy: Chapter One - part two

Dizzy
Chapter One - part two

Jane struggled in the darkness. There was a huge weight pressing down on her chest. It was hard to breathe and there was a roaring in her ears. It grew louder, then it faded. She tried to lift her arms but they felt pinned to her sides as if tied there. Her mind felt fuzzy from fatigue. She tried to turn her shoulders and extend her back to shift the weight on her chest. A jolt of pain shot up her back and she cried out. She slumped. She turned her head and opened her eyes. The room was dim, curtains drawn. A large dark shadow obscured her view. She tried to breathe but sucked fur into her mouth. She coughed. Consciousness came back quickly. She pulled her right arm out from under the covers and shoved the cat off her chest. The roaring stopped as the cat repositioned itself at her side. 

Jane shook her hand. Pins and needles. It was covered in a bandage. Now she remembered last night and why her body was objecting this morning.

Her shoulder ached. Systems check.

Wiggle toes. Flex feet. Left ankle stiff, but okay.

Sense trouble in lower back, RHS.

The cat, sensing no attempt on Jane’s part to get up, tried to climb back onto her chest.

Jane hissed at her. “Shoo! Go away.”

“Meowww,” replied the cat. The message was clear: feed me.

Jane tried to turn and sit up in the usual way she would get out of bed. Pain jabbing at her lower back forced her to lie down again.

“Meowww. Meowww.”

“Shut up you useless cat. I’ll feed you in a minute!”

She tried again, but at the first attempt to tighten her abdomen to rise, the pain in her back stopped her.

“Shit! I don’t need this,” she muttered through gritted teeth.

Jane pulled the duvet and sheet across her body. The cat scrambled away and jumped down onto the floor. Jane tugged until she was uncovered and lying in the middle of the bed. The cat jumped back up immediately and pawed at her. Now, we’re getting somewhere, she seemed to say.

Jane swatted at her with her left hand and reached for the edge of the bed. She pulled her body to the edge, sliding her hips, then her shoulders in stages. At the edge, she bent her legs reaching for the floor with her toes. No good. She took a deep breath, locked the muscles in her core and rolled over. A sharp pain in her sacro-iliac region told her this wasn’t a good idea. Last night’s heroics had taken its toll. She forced back nausea. Now she had to pee. Jane rolled herself onto the floor supporting herself on all fours. Her knee was scuffed and hurt when she scraped it on the carpet.

“Damn! Is there anything that doesn’t hurt?” Crawling to the bathroom hurt her bandaged hand where the wound was forced to flex. She used the heel of her hand to take weight. Her knee protested when it rubbed on the carpet. She used the sink to help herself onto the toilet. The cat wound itself between her legs. Just then the phone rang. The machine was in the kitchen. She listened. It was the Detective from the police station asking her to come down this morning for some questions. It clicked off.

“Great! How am I going to get down there when I can hardly get to the toilet to pee? Huh? Can you tell me that?” she said to the cat.

She flushed and used the vanity to stand. Her lower back felt tender to the touch as she explored the extent of her injuries.

“That jerk had better be feeling worse than me!” she told herself in the mirror.

Turning gently, all the while fixing her trunk muscles to stabilize her lower back, she climbed into the shower stall and shooed away the cat. She closed the door. Fortunately, she didn’t have to bend to turn on the water. Hot water cascaded down her body giving relief where it touched. Her bandaged hand got wet. She didn’t care. She turned up the volume of hot water and turned her back to it. 

Maybe I’m going to die, but at least not today, she thought.

She had to force herself from the shower. A cursory wipe with a towel told her drip drying was the best, the only, option today. She labored into a terry towel bathrobe, some fuzzy bunny slippers and made her way to the coffee shrine. She remembered that she had had the foresight to load it last night. She flicked the switch. Red light. Good.

 Jane stood at the counter bracing herself with both hands while the machine wheezed and gurgled. Her hair hung damply on her neck and drips trickled between her breasts. She felt like a wreck. Confronting her stalker on the river path last night had left her battered. Wrestling on the ground after falling on that tree root had strained her back and shoulders. Her ankle was swollen. She arched her hips away from the counter to look at her feet. She peered down at her ankle.

Yep. Swollen. 

She shook her head disapprovingly and her shoulder protested. The cat rubbed itself against her legs. Jane glanced at the empty dish on the floor below the sink.

“Whatsa matter, got no thumbs? “ she asked the cat.

“Meowww. Meow!” she scolded.

“All right. All right!” She drew a deep breath. ‘How am I going to do this?”

The cat food was under the sink. She opened the cupboard. There were two stacks of four ounce tins with the pull ring tops, one turkey, one tuna, each about ten cans tall. Jane looked down at them. The cat looked up at her and rubbed her head against Jane’s leg. 

Meoww.

There was one can of ham & something sitting alone on the shelf. Jane nudged it onto the floor and kicked it towards the cat dish.

“There. You do it.” 

The cat looked unimpressed.

 “Oh yeah, I forgot. No thumbs. Okay.”

Bracing herself she leaned down as little as she had to and just reached the top can from the tallest stack.

“Turkey & gravy. Oboy. Yumm,” she told the cat.

Holding her breath she opened the can. The cat meowed loudly at the sound. She stretched upwards pawing at the cupboard door trying to reach the counter.

 Unable even to think about trying to pick up the cat’s supper dish, Jane took a dessert plate from the cupboard. She spooned out half the can onto the plate and tucked the open can into a baggie and put it into the fridge for tomorrow. With her foot, she pulled out a chair and put the cat’s breakfast on the chair that being as low as she could reach. The big, fluffy gray cat leaped onto the chair and was face down in the food dish before Jane could stand erect.

“Now, coffee. Must have coffee!”

Her favourite mug hung on a tree beside the coffee maker, a black 16 ounce mug with “Ironman Canada 20^th Anniversary” on the side in gold leaf. She pulled the pot from the maker, only half done, and filled her mug. It hissed as she replaced it. She retrieved a container of International coffee French vanilla syrup from the fridge and poured a dollop into her mug. She was just stirring it when a crash told her that the cat had nudged the dessert plate too close to the edge of the chair. 

With a deep sigh Jane slowly raised her mug to her lips and sipped the hot sweet beverage.

It’s going well, considering, she thought.

***