~ PG ~Donatello goes on an unexpected trip to New England. Told from his POV - six (short) pages
I hit the pavement hard and went into a graceless roll, somehow ending up on my feet at the end of it. I stood in the middle of the city street and watched the bus go around the corner, disappearing from sight. My arm was still hurting... worse, even, than before. I pushed my already blood-covered hand against the ripped sleeve and gritted my teeth. Then I looked around.
From what I could see, Springfield was a little like New York. But it was quiet... not totally silent, but much more so than I ever remembered the Big Apple being... even at around three in the morning... or was it four AM?
There weren't any people out. I'd always been used to having stores open and cars rushing by at all hours. This place was nearly a ghost town in comparison. I felt almost like I was lost in an episode of The Twilight Zone. The city looked like New York... but that was all. It sure didn't feel like it.
Still, it was interesting. I walked down one street and then another and saw maybe a total of three people and seven cars. It could have been that it was a Sunday, or the section of town... but what I saw was a whole lot of alone. And I liked it.
Regardless, I had problems. The ache in my arm was growing and the makeshift tourniquet wasn't doing as well as I had hoped it would. Blood soaked into the arm of my duster and ran down to my fingertips, dripping onto the ground and leaving an eerie trail behind me. I was letting my arm hang... a mistake. I forced my arm out of the sleeve and rearranged the fabric into a stopgap sling to keep the limb from hanging. It would do for a while, but I knew that I had to get some professional help. Unfortunately, that meant I had to find a professional.
Luck met me halfway when I spotted a familiar blue sign with a big white H on it. The arrow pointed straight ahead and I walked on in the dark, cradling my injured limb. The name on the building was Mercy Hospital and I let myself take in the sight for a while... I certainly hoped they would be merciful.
I found my way back to the staff parking lot and waited, watching the door. Eventually a woman walked out - clean-cut and professional-looking. I hated to do what I had to do, but I approached her as she reached her car.
"Are you a doctor?" I asked.
The woman jumped and spun. Quick as any human I've ever seen, she had a can of pepper spray aimed at my eyes. I was quick, too, and she missed my face completely with the spray. She didn't even realize that I'd taken the can until she looked in her hand.
"Are you a doctor?" I repeated.
"Get the hell away from me!" she yelled, throwing a punch that landed itself on my wound. I fought back a sound of surprise, but still flinched at the pain. It was a dark parking lot... good thing, or else she might have seen the biggest grimace in Southern New England.
I backed a step away and she reached for the handle of her car door, keeping her eyes on me... then her eyes wandered to my arm and the blood dripping off it onto the ground. She looked at her own blood-covered fist and I turned to walk away... I wasn't going to bother her anymore, there had to be someone else a little more responsive to deal with.
"I'm a nurse," I heard her say softly.
I looked back over my shoulder at her. She couldn't see my face and wasn't looking at it... her thoughts and eyes were focused on my arm. I saw the human's compassion triumph over good sense as she approached me and touched my arm... the action reminded me of when, just a few hours before, I had let my compassion overwhelm my logic and I followed the gunman onto the bus. A mixed blessing, that had been. I'd managed to save the life of a child and maybe even more people, but I'd also managed to strand myself in a strange city. I hoped that I wouldn't screw anything else up before morning.
"What happened?" she asked, trying to see past the bloody cloth.
"I was shot," I replied, stating the blindingly obvious.
"You should go to the emergency room."
"I can't."
"Why?"
I shrugged and drew in a breath at the sting that accompanied it. "I can't"
She backed a step away and put her hand on her car again. "Are the police after you?" she asked nervously.
"No."
"Then... why? No insurance?"
I knew that it had to come down to a point where I would have to reveal the truth if I intended to get any help. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled my sleeve to the side, revealing the green, very non-human skin underneath. She covered her mouth and let out a squeak... and fainted dead away.
That didn't do me much good. I needed someone's help, though, and wasn't going to show myself to everybody in the hospital in the hopes that maybe one of them wouldn't be shocked by my appearance. This nurse would have to do. I kneeled down and shook her lightly, trying to rouse her from her unexpected nap... if both arms had been in good condition I might have just carried her into the hospital. After about a minute of trying I finally managed to wake her. She looked up at me and smiled.
"Just tell me I'm dreaming," she said, "and I'll do whatever you need done."
I smiled back, she actually believed she was dreaming. "Sure it's a dream," I told her.
"And you're a frog," she said, extending her hand to me. "Help me up."
"A turtle, actually," I told her, reaching down with my good arm. She took hold of my green hand without so much as a moment's hesitation.
"Whatever."
I'm not even sure now whether she trusted me or if she was still wrapped up in her delusion that she was in a dream world, but she led me inside the hospital, glancing around corners to be sure that I wasn't seen. We walked quietly and I did my best to keep the blood from my wound from leaving a tell-tale trail to wherever she was leading me. It was odd... being in a hospital. That was the first time in my life that I had even been near one and now I was finding myself sneaking through the corridors, ducking and weaving to avoid the glances of doctors, nurses, orderlies, and patients... I felt like Richard Kimball in The Fugitive.
Eventually we got to a darkened room and the nurse ushered me inside before her. She flipped the lights on to reveal a pretty standard-looking room, if all the hospital rooms that I've seen in movies were accurate representations, that is. There was a single bed, several cabinets and one very mean-looking stainless steel tray that, thankfully, didn't have any of the objects of terror on it that I'd also seen in all those movies.
"Sit down," the woman said, motioning toward the bed as she shut and locked the door.
I leaped up onto the bed and struggled out of my duster, tossing it to the far end of the paper-covered mattress. I took my hat off, too, and suddenly felt very exposed.
"Hey," she said with a half-smile, "You really are a turtle."
"Have been all my life," I replied with a grimace as I took my blood-soaked elbow pad off of my left arm. The leather was stained almost black... I tossed it down beside my hat.
The woman opened a cabinet and started taking down plastic-covered implements that vaguely resembled those objects of terror I had just been thinking about. "Can you tell me what happened to your arm?" she asked, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.
I pressed my hand against the hole in my flesh and gritted my teeth. "It's a long story, actually..."
"Go to it..." she took the instruments out of the plastic and put them down on the metal tray, making an eerie clang in the silence of the room. "By the way, my name is Linda."
"Donatello," I told her. "But go ahead and call me Don... most everybody does, anyway."
"Okay, Don," she said with a kind smile as she untied the headband from above my wound. "Press here..." she pushed my hand harder against the hole. "What happened?"
As I talked, she went to work on my arm. The fixing-up of the wound hurt about ten times worse than the injury, itself. We both decided that anesthesia was out of the question. My physiology was basically alien to her... there was no telling what even local anesthesia would do to me. So I bit down... hard... the worst part was when she had to dig out the bullet still lodged in my muscle. I fought back the pain and told her the whole story of how I came to be so far from where I belonged... the telling helped to distract me a little, but mostly it was just an interesting story. I could tell that she thought so, too.
"You're a hero, then," Linda said, passing the needle through my skin for another stitch. "I'm honored."
"Honored?" I said, a bit skeptical. "For what?"
"You're too modest," she stated with a smile. "I bet you keep to yourself a lot, don't you?"
"You could say that."
She put the needle down on the tray and picked up a piece of gauze, pressing it against my freshly-repaired arm. "Read a lot?"
"Yeah."
"Like what? Poetry?"
I smiled and shook my head. "No... my brother Mike likes poetry, though. I stick to technical stuff... science and mathematics and theory... pretty dry stuff as far as my brothers think."
"Ever read the dictionary?"
I let out a little laugh. "Only when I can't sleep."
Linda was nice. One of those humans that I could really get to like if time would allow. But, as it was, time wouldn't. There was one window in the little hospital room and it was clear that the sun was on it's way up... I had to get myself out of public and to a phone... maybe I could get hold of April... that would be the only way I'd be able to get hold of Master Splinter and the others. I knew they had to be worried about me being out so late. As far as they knew, I was still in New York.
"Something wrong?" Linda asked, looking at me. I hadn't noticed how far I'd let my mind wander.
"I need to call my family," I told her. "They have no idea..."
I stood up and Linda helped me into my duster. "You can use my car phone," she said.
I was about to thank her when we heard the jingle of keys in the door.
"Damn!" I said, running for the window. It was locked... and I wasn't about to break it to get out. The door swung open and I made a break for it, knocking down the person who was there... the keys went flying. I felt bad for not thanking Linda or saying goodbye, but deep down I think she understood. I hoped that I hadn't gotten her in any trouble.
I ran through the hospital, taking the same route that Linda had used to lead me to the room by. I burst out the hospital doors like a bat out of Hell. It was getting too bright outside for me to be exposed... people were driving in the parking lot, swerving so as not to hit the odd green stranger that suddenly appeared before them. Worse of all, I'd left my watch cap in the hospital room. My presence was very obvious and there were more than a few gasps of surprise from the people around me.
So I ran.
I ran as fast and as far as I could, making my way past curious people and barking dogs. I ran until I was out of breath... then I ran some more. I found myself an alley and trotted down it, hoping to find a welcoming sewer grate. I didn't, but at least there was a quiet corner hidden behind a row of dumpsters. I leaned against the building's brick wall and lowered myself to the ground, fighting to catch my breath. I was tired and hungry... and I was alone.
I put my hands into the pockets of my duster and felt something there... a piece of paper. I pulled it out and took a look at a ten dollar bill that hadn't been there when I left New York. I smiled to myself.
Linda, I thought. Thank you.
I returned the money to my pocket and leaned my head back, closing my eyes. Despite my exposure, I fell asleep with a smile on my face... I dreamed about home and strange places and humans that belied the uncaring image they so often give themselves.
I slept.
