I don’t remember what time it was exactly, when I hit the sidewalk… the hot, uneven, concrete slab, sidewalk that hugged the little side street near the house I was staying at, in Santa Barbara, but I remember it hurt.
“Fuck!” I yelled in mid air. I watched in slow motion as my belongings left my hands, my heavy reusable cup hitting the sidewalk before I did, Dr Pepper splashing everywhere, ice cubes bouncing into the street, my iPhone leaving my fingertips, skidding to a stop on a patch of grass and then…
SLAM.
I had been so caught up in watching things fall that I didn’t realize that I was also falling, that the pain I had felt in my right big toe, was actually me tripping over the sidewalk.
SLAM.
My arm that had been carrying my cup hits the concrete and slides forward. My right knee follows suit and I curse myself for wearing shorts like a normal person would on a summer day, walking down the street.
“Fuck!” I yell, half crawling, half lunging for my phone like it was going to help in some way to see if the phone was broken. “Fuck,” I whimper, checking the case. I hear Siri talking to me from outside of a fog.
“Do you want me to call someone for you?” She chirps, at least that’s what the translation on the screen reads.
“No.” I say pocketing the phone and realizing that my elbow and knee were burning quite fantastically. “I didn’t think so,” my phone chirps back at me. At least I think it did. I was standing up by this time, looking at the offended burning knee and elbow, both shockingly red, both dripping.
“Fuck.” I grumble as I take stock of the situation. The house I’m staying at is up hill from where I’m standing. The destination I was walking to, was downhill. The pain in my limbs was intensifying. My feelings were also starting to hurt too… between the realization that I was human and gravity applied to me, to realizing that even my phone knew I really didn’t have anyone to call to help me. I was all alone and covered in blood in Santa Barbara.
And I was stone cold sober. For the first time in years, I was sober. And it fucking hurt.
I almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. I’d fallen a million times in my day. Off of walls, down stairs, in parking lots, mosh pits, my own backyard, my own front yard… I fell down once into a very spikey bush while carrying a martini in a crystal martini glass. I ate shit but my drink barely spilled, the glass was intact, gracefully held over my head as I called for someone to take it so I could get out of this bush I had landed in… All these ridiculous and grand falls while I was drunk and yet while sober, a stupid sidewalk took me out.
For a second.
When it was still under construction, I stepped on an asphalt chunk in front of Cerro Hotel and down I went. I was carrying an iced coffee which went everywhere. Remarkably, I didn’t get hurt and was able to get up OK. A woman came over from Linnaea’s to check on things and offered to buy me a replacement drink, which was incredibly kind. I had to decline, as I was on my way to catch a bus. Anyway, gravity is the worst.