How did I get here?

At this moment

I am sitting beside a splatter-puddle of my drying blood.

Wondering

“How did I get here?”

I know it’s my blood because I just had to wash it off my face and out of my eyes.

I know it’s my blood because I am currently engaged in trying to stop it from bleeding.

Head wounds always bleed profusely.

The puncture wounds in my face all but stopped with some pressure. However the one in my head is still pumping a merry flow. I am working on cleaning everything and applying a lot of pressure.

This is difficult, because I have been left alone to tend to my wounds.

A male teacher came to give me the first aid kit, but was shaking so much he could not hand it to me and dropped it on the table. He made an effort to open it, but his hands shook so bad he couldn’t and he dropped it again. After I spoke calmly and reassuringly to get him to settle down a bit. I had to perform some awkward head-mouth-elbow-maneuver to take the kit from him, open it and try not get blood on it or drop the clump of tissue on my head. In doing so, I get blood on it and drop the tissue. The teacher, slightly calmer from reassuring “it’s okay” talk we had, asks me why I am so calm. He is watching me try and clean the blood from the first aid kit. I chuckle as warmly as I can and tell him it is because I used to be a doorman and pause before adding “…it’s probably all the shock I’m in…” with a laugh. He laughs. And hurries away.

He clearly has no crisis training. He is one of the same teachers who, when he heard the screaming let all his students into the hallways. The same students that would fill up the hallways and block my way to a toilet to wash the blood out of my eyes. The same students that would force me to stumble down the hallway and down a few flights of stairs to find a toilet.

Blood can blind you know. It’s important to get it out of your eyes…

I manage to get some things out to clean the wound and cover it again. It stings, throbs and other words for hurt. It feels like there is a dent in the bone in my skull. The puncture wounds in my face are burning, as are the nail scrapes on my face and elsewhere. It is safe to say everything hurts. But, the wounds where he dug his nails in, dragged and scrapped them across hurt and burn with a particular intensity.

No one has any crisis training…

No one is here with waiting with me. No one has checked on me. No one seems to care. I have nothing to drink and when I went to leave the room I was told back into the classroom. There was a woman standing by the door for a bit, and when I stood up she suggested I sit back down. She has gone now. I think.

Due to my then unshakable belief in the inherent good of Finnish people, I would not realise they were treating me like a criminal until later.

They have left me in the classroom on my own after being attacked.

Shock is a strange thing and I am suddenly so thirsty that swallowing is painful.

I am still holding a clump of cotton and tissue to my head.

Each swallow is like a garlic bulb of dry flesh being rubbed and crushed in my throat.

I have a bottle of cold oolong tea in my bag, but it is on the other side of my blood and I find that suddenly difficult to try and cross.

No one is there. No one is coming. No one has any crisis training.

No one has any crisis training

A weird sort of step-on-the-crack-and-break-your-mother’s-back wide-step table grab swing about gesture to avoid all the hot-floor-lava areas of my splatter-blood gets me to my bag and the tea and a long bound back causes the make shift bandage to fall off and my head to start bleeding again.

I am waiting for an ambulance.

I am waiting for the police.

They have let my attacker go.

I drink the tea quickly while I wait. It barely quenches as shock steals it away and the dry returns. In the silence, I stare at my drying blood and try to control the shakes by tracing the marks around my face and eyes that are the near misses where he repeatedly tried to drive the metal body pen into my eyes and throat.

I am alone.

Nobody has come to check on me for quite some time. I can’t help but wonder if the smudge is where I slipped. Did I skid or slip in my own blood?

There’s no one to ask.

I am waiting for an ambulance.

I am waiting for the police.

I am cold and shivering. I know this is the shock and need to wrap up in my hoodie against it. It will pass in a bit. I should try and eat something.

Nobody has come to ask me if I am okay.

Nobody has any crisis training.

The places where he ripped the puncture wounds with his nails burn hot.

And I suppose I should explain how I got here.