The Gurney - A Short Story

Photo by Daan Stevens on Unsplash

The car cruised along the old road.

The darkness of the night only emboldened by the distant moon caused the road to appear almost in a haze. The glow of the headlights on her car weren't enough to create good visibility. Yet here she was, cruising listlessly down the road because she realized she just had to drive. She had to get out of the house, she had to be moving, she had to escape, she had to have some space and some time. She needed the distance to be able to think, to be able to process just what in the world was going on in her life.

Tired, but pushing she drove. Exhausted really, she felt as if she was running.

"Next thing, next thing, next thing."

This was the echo of her life. More, better, get it done, not good enough, more time, more energy, try harder, work harder!

She must attain perfection and perfection is ruthless. Perfection will chase you down and make you quiver and she couldn't see that she was exhausted. She was unable to truly rest, unable to shut her mind off for even a second, constantly anxious, worried, angry, alone, having no vision of a brighter future or a lesser burden.

So she drove. She drove and drove herself down the road. She was trying to do it all, to be it all, to be everything to everyone and yet to keep up with herself. She had to make it all work, she had no choice but to make it all work and she was starting to see that she couldn't do it. She was starting to feel lost, helpless, alone, hopeless.

She felt her growing incapacitation. She was unable to make a relationship work, no matter how hard she tried she couldn't do it. She felt in the whole of her life that she was growing increasingly unable to change things, to change her circumstances, to make any lasting dent in what had long since faded of her happiness. Her growing sense of inadequacy was beginning to pervade every fiber of her being and every function of her life.

She drove on facing her uselessness, effectiveness, and control slipping away. It was as though she was stuck in quicksand and sinking. Sinking. She hopelessly looked up seeking a branch or a vine that she could grab onto as all her dreams were slowly but certainly climbing out of her reach despite all she did to stop the downward spiral it kept on.

So she drove feeling as though her whole life she had been running uphill and making some sort of progress, starting to put the pieces back together when she'd slip, fall and be right back at the bottom of the hill. The constant shortcomings led her to immense self-doubt and yet she wanted more, she wanted to believe despite all of the disappointments that one day her life was going to get better.

What only made matters worse was that all around her she watched others have the success, the hope, the dreams, the accomplishments that she wanted for herself yet couldn't attain.

She drove on as the pit of her stomach felt heavy, as though she couldn't breath or even speak. Life just continued to get faster and faster and she grew all the more demanding of herself. She had to admit that she's afraid. She's scared. She's scared for tomorrow and she's screaming at today.

She must've looked frantic driving down that old road. Her silence broke as she screamed, guttural, painful screams burst forth from her mouth so hastily that she wasn't forming sentences or words. She was fuming, she was furious. She was angry at God, at mom, at dad, at her boss, her co-workers, her friends. She was so mad at herself she couldn't handle it.

The screaming turned quickly to weeping. She began in choked, gentle cries but that quickly gave way to heaving, uncontrollable, explosive sobs. The tears hotly flowed over her cheeks and down onto her arms as she clutched the wheel of the car.

Her eyes clouded and her emotions flooding her she's losing control.


"Clear."

"Clear."

The yelling from the medic cut through the hazy night air.

The electricity shot through the defibrillator and lit into her chest, jolting her awake. At the moments of first light when her eyes flashed open she began aggressively grasping upward. She gasped and gasped, sucking in air, desperate for life. The strong arms of the EMT held her in place as she thrashed about on the gurney.

It was in the back of an ambulance, as she desperately tried to lift her head up to see what was going on that she realized she had been seriously hurt.

It almost seemed like a dream because of how instantaneous the crash had been. She'd gone off the road and swerved right into a bulky oak tree. She could see pools of blood cloaking her frame as the paramedics worked to stop the bleeding.

What had happened?

She had lost so much blood that her heartbeat had become a mere whisper. Without the jolt of electricity from the defibrillator she would have faded into death.

As her neck muscles weakened and light-headedness kicked in, she thrust her head back down onto the gurney and passed out cold.





The next thing she could hear was the gentle voice of her nurse as her eyes sprung open. The brightness of the hospital room was overwhelming and briefly she felt like she was in another world.

She had learned that she had come out of surgery and was okay. Blood had been transfused and she was slowly going to be able to get back to normal. She was always going to be scarred from the wreck. She found out that a large branch from the oak tree had pierced her through the arms and down into her upper thigh after it was done shattering her windshield.

Fragments of glass had been pulled from the scabbed wounds atop her head. Her ankle and both wrists had been fractured. Her body had been reduced to brokenness and frailty.

Her value of control and her need to achieve cause her to panic. There was no quick fix, no next project, no work to be done. She had to stop. It was as if the accident had hit pause on her life and she now would have to rest in the work of the doctors and nurses. She had no choice but to trust them, to believe that they would be able to make her well.

And they did. Miraculously over time she began to be healed. First she could wheel herself around. Then she could walk. More and more over the days and weeks she spent recovering she felt a renewed sense of freedom and joy in even the smallest of things.

The pain of her old life which at times she had been so blindingly focused to admit suddenly was a mere memory. For the first time in her life, she truly felt alive. Hope flooded into her life each morning and she truly had begun to look upward. Dramatically, her priorities shifted and she started to see life, good and bad, for the beauty and the gift that it is. She knew and was convinced that her life was going to work out well, and truly she became a blessing to others.

Her scars remained on her body all of her life. Her problems with both mental and physical health persisted. However, she had seen that life isn't all about circumstances, and that there was joy even in suffering. She was truly thankful for everything she had been through, and she lived out her years in wild hope for the future and joy in the present.