Storiography is the documentary work of designer Christiana Aretta.

Part One: The Bike

Yesterday, I got on my bike to do a 15k training ride I’ve been doing 3 times a week for the past two weeks. One moment, I was clipping my right foot into the pedal and the next, I was lying on my back surrounded by EMTs, car mechanics and antique dealers from the shops nearby.

Huh.

We had a brief but factual conversation:

EMT: “What’s your name?”
me: “Christiana.”
EMT: “What’s the year?”
me: “2010.”
EMT: “Can you tell me what day of the week it is?”
me (cringing inwardly): “…uh, Tuesday?”

Side note: I remain firmly convinced that folks with M-F 9-5 jobs can’t understand the mental gymnastics this freelancer goes through to remember the day of the week. Sometimes I work on the weekends. Sometimes I go shopping on a Thursday. For a whole year, I spent every Saturday shooting 10 hour weddings and Sunday sure as H-E-Double-Hockeysticks didn’t feel like a weekend.

A man’s voice called out from my left side:

“Don’t worry – I’ve got your bike right here. In Onslow Antiques. The cop’s getting all this information down. It’ll be right here for you when you get back.”

My bike! It’s ok! I turned my head to find it. A man was holding it by the frame. It was missing a wheel and the front fork looked like a pair of shiny black broken bones – cruelly snapped and splintered beyond repair.

I groaned audibly and the EMS guys looked at me, “Does that hurt? Where is the pain?”

Is there a bike bone? I heard myself wondering cuz that’s where it really hurts. My bike… my beautiful bike…

Part Two: The Emergency Room

At the hospital, they set my stretcher under the portable x-ray machine. A blond nurse peered down at me. We had a brief but factual conversation:

Nurse: “What’s your name?”
me: “Christiana.”
Nurse: “What’s the year?”
me: “2010.”
Nurse: “Can you tell me what day of the week it is?”
me (semi-confidently): “Tuesday.”

I must have passed the test – she and two other nurses lifted my arms and shoulders gingerly. I heard one of them say, “We’ll try not to ruin your expensive shirt.”

“This shirt? I found it in a box on the street.” Did I just laugh? I must be ok…

The blond nurse and I locked eyes briefly before she whipped out a pair of scissors and declared, “I’m cutting this thing off!”

They took a round of x-rays and a tall man with glasses, a white lab coat, and the slow, steady gaze of someone who’s seen it all came to my side. We had a brief but factual conversation:

Doctor: “What’s your name?”
me: “Christiana.”
Doctor: “What’s the year?”
me: “2010.”
Doctor: “Can you tell me what day of the week it is?”
me (knowingly): “Tuesday.”

He sent me off for a CAT scan. Have you ever watched a hospital scene that was filmed from the patient in the stretcher’s point of view? It was EXACTLY like that – white acoustical tiles punctuated by fluorescent lights and mesh panels for the HVAC – except for the ceiling-mounted Cisco wireless points every 50 feet or so.

Part Three: Waiting

After all the tests, I was wheeled into a staging room where I was greeted by Kareem:

Kareem: “Hi, I’m Kareem. What’s your name?”
me: “Christiana.”
Kareem: “What’s the year?”
me: “2010.”
Kareem: “Can you tell me what day of the week it is?”
me (resignedly): “Tuesday. Is everyone going to ask me that?”
Kareem: “Yep.”

At this point, a female doctor bearing a clipboard swept in and announced, “I’ll be taking over. Dr. Blair is really worried because you have a lot of dry stool in your belly.”

What?! Is that why I fell off my bike? Have I been constipated lately? My BELLY? What am I, five years old? What on earth is she talking about?? I’d been cracking jokes with medical staff since I arrived but I had no witty comeback for that one – I was utterly unprepared and completely speechless. My look of utter confusion must have said what my tongue could not – the doctor double-checked her clipboard with a frown and swept out of the room as breezily as she had swept in.

The rest of the day was fairly boring. I received a new discharge bracelet (with my maiden name misspelled – Rodriguz?! Who makes that mistake?) and several documents (also with my name misspelled – Christiniana?! I don’t even know how to pronounce that…) with instructions on how to clean my wounds and who to call with questions. I was back at work to collect my things by 5 and home by 6 with plenty of time to mourn my bike and nurse my wounded pride.

My admittance bracelet – they didn’t take my name officially until discharge. Hospital staff explained that, in lieu of names, they use an alphabetical system to track patients admitted to the ER. You know you’re dating an engineer/nerd, when they say, upon inspection of the bracelet, “Oh, so you must have been the 17th person today.”

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