Thursday
Last week, I gashed myself while cutting firewood, and what then transpired resembled the scene where the White Queen pricks herself with her brooch in Alice through the Looking Glass.
I’m happy to report that the cut itself was not serious. Using the axe as a hatchet to cut kindling, I hit an unexpected knot, which caused the axe to glance off the log and cut the top of my hand just over the bone at the base of my index finger. There was little bleeding and only four stitches were required.
Initially, as the White Queen is explaining to Alice “the effect of living backwards,” we see her bandaging her finger.
Shortly thereafter, she begins to scream:
Alice was just beginning to say ‘There’s a mistake somewhere—,’ when the Queen began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence unfinished. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ shouted the Queen, shaking her hand about as if she wanted to shake it off. ‘My finger’s bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!’
Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine, that Alice had to hold both her hands over her ears.
‘What is the matter?’ she said, as soon as there was a chance of making herself heard. ‘Have you pricked your finger?’
‘I haven’t pricked it yet,’ the Queen said, ‘but I soon shall—oh, oh, oh!’
Finally, there’s the actual injury:
‘When do you expect to do it?’ Alice asked, feeling very much inclined to laugh.
‘When I fasten my shawl again,’ the poor Queen groaned out: ‘the brooch will come undone directly. Oh, oh!’ As she said the words the brooch flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it, and tried to clasp it again.
‘Take care!’ cried Alice. ‘You’re holding it all crooked!’ And she caught at the brooch; but it was too late: the pin had slipped, and the Queen had pricked her finger.
‘That accounts for the bleeding, you see,’ she said to Alice with a smile. ‘Now you understand the way things happen here.’
‘But why don’t you scream now?’ Alice asked, holding her hands ready to put over her ears again.
‘Why, I’ve done all the screaming already,’ said the Queen. ‘What would be the good of having it all over again?’
To recap life in Looking Glass Land, bandage first, scream second, prick yourself third.
My own Looking Glass sequence began with a Christmas gift of special “cooling field towels,” designed for those times when one can’t take a regular shower. My wife’s gift didn’t make sense at the time since, as I am retired, I can take a shower whenever I need one.
Then, two weeks ago, I had a tetanus shot, recommended by my doctor during my annual check-up. “You haven’t had one for a while,” he observed.
At the check-up, I scheduled a follow-up appointment to monitor a new medication. That check-up was scheduled for 9:30 last Thursday.
I cut myself at 8:45.
It so happens that I had forgotten about the follow-up appointment. Julia, after first pouring peroxide into my wound, called our doctor, only to be told that I was already scheduled to see him.
So instead of
–cutting myself;
–scheduling an appointment;
–getting a tetanus shot;
— and dry washing myself,
I followed the White Queen’s example and reversed the order: buy special washing equipment, receive a shot, schedule the doctor, cut myself.
It’s Lewis Carroll’s world. The rest of us are just living in it.