The Ghost of Me

Very often my dreams play out in movie-style sequences. Last night I dreamed that I was a ghost in a hotel room and then the story of how I died replayed.

I was in a large, older model Bronco with many other people. We were 4-wheeling or having some other shenanigans when something went wrong, the driver slammed on the breaks, and my leg was impaled on a plastic cup.

The cup was like one of those red ones at parties, but it was clear plastic, and it was lodged about 1/2" deep all the way around the rim into my top left thigh. Holy crap, I thought. I believe some others were injured in the crash as well so I thought I should leave the cup in to hold in any bleeding (high school first aid class coming in handy in dream world!) and tend to the other people first.

Whoever our friends were, however, were not taking us to the hospital. Was this how I became a ghost, because I didn't get medical attention in time? Just then one of the stupid kids in the front seat saw the cup in my leg and reached back to yank it out. Thanks dude.

Now I was bleeding profusely unless I held the two parallel wounds together with my hands. I could no longer tend to the other injured people. We were still not at the hospital.

Later I finally did somehow arrive at the hospital where I realized that my left tibia was also broken. My leg looked bad, the bottom half of my leg sagged and a huge bulge stuck out of my shin where the bone was broken. The gashes in my upper leg were difficult to hold together. I needed surgery quickly.

The nurses and doctors were incompetent. No one seemed to know what to do and one nurse was prodding at my broken bone asking it if hurt. Yes, lady, it hurts. I didn't end up seeing how I actually died, but it seemed that the surgeons or whoever didn't act quickly enough and I died at the hospital from my seemingly-non-lethal wounds.

Then I was a ghost.