Delayed

We left the hospital pretty much on time. Brief introductions, all around, between the ambulance drivers, the doctor and the nurse traveling with us, Mom, myself. The four of us piled into the back. I was groggy. Mom had pushed me through the hallways in a wheelchair, taking extra care with me, and there was a kind of a cot inside the back of the ambulance for me to lay down on.

Along with the much-needed blood dripping into my body was a steady diet of antibiotics. I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles. Gave up trying to find a way to make the cot as comfortable as the bed I'd just left. It was strange at first, laying flat on my back in a moving vehicle. No sense of direction, no idea where we were going except for what I could see of the night sky outside the narrow windows, turns and bumps that seemed all backwards and spun around.

Streetlights passed by slowly, steadily picking up speed, spapping past until my eyes stopped trying to chase them. Deep, shallow breaths. A light, tentative sleep.

I'm sure it was the absence of movement, the absence of noise, that woke me less than an hour later. The bright wash of lights, as if we were in a covered parking lot. A sleepy, fuzzy brain, trying to make sense of the situation. It didn't seem like we'd been on the road long enough to be in London already.

"Whuzziza?" I asked nobody in particular.

"Hush," Mom said. "Go back to sleep."

Propped up on elbows, now, blinking through the harsh lights. "Hurr," I said, more exhale than an "Hurrwethur?"

"No," she said. "We've stopped. There was a problem. Something with the transmission, I think. Whatever: we've stopped. They've called it in, and we're waiting for another ambulance to take us the rest of the way. Shouldn't be much more than another hour."

"Timeizzit" I asked. Head back down. Eyes closed. Deep, shallow breaths.

"Late," Mom said. "Very late."