Tuesday Tales: From the Word NECK

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales. It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of April. The weather certainly doesn’t feel like it, so let’s hope May will be more spring-like. Tuesday tales is a weekly blog where a select group of authors post scenes from their works in progress. I’m working on a new story, Trouble with Eden.

Jackson sat on the side of the hospital bed, his newly replaced fiberglass cast propped up on a stool and followed the bright penlight as he’d been instructed to, trying not to blink his eyes. In the almost three weeks that he’d been here, he’d been poked and prodded, examined and tested, until he was ready to scream. His ankle had been surgically rebuilt, and his broken leg was healing well inside its cast. He wouldn’t be running marathons anytime soon, but he would walk with only the slightest limp—or so the doctor hoped.

Thanks to the insurance agent who’d driven down from Toronto to check out the damage, he knew exactly what he’d hit—a bull moose standing more than two meters or six feet tall and weighing 750 kg, almost 1600 pounds. Only in Canada did people measure both ways. While the man hadn’t been able to come inside the hospital because of on-going COVID restrictions, he’d phoned and had delivered a thorough report, complete with photographs. Jackson was lucky to be alive, and he knew it.

It wasn’t surprising that the Mercedes was a right-off, but since he carried replacement insurance, there was a new one ordered for him, the same make and model, if a couple of years newer. Everything, including his new car, would be waiting for him at the local Mercedes dealer just as soon as he could get out of here.

The doctor lowered the penlight and raised his stethoscope to his chest. Jackson twisted his neck to the right, focusing on the plant the lawyer had sent, breathing in, and then exhaling on cue. What a fool he’d been. If there was a bonus to spending the last three weeks flat on his back, it was the time it had given him to think.

Naïvely, once he’d received the letter, he’d assumed that everything would work out. As an only child, now orphaned, he was thrilled with the possibility of a sibling, the brother he’d always wanted. As he’d lain here, counting the holes in the acoustic tiles above his bed, he’d thought long and hard about his foolish decision. Here he was, a total stranger, sticking his hand into the man’s pocket and stealing half of what the guy had expected would be his. No wonder E J hadn’t sent flowers.

That’s it. Stay safe and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales