Elbows and unwell-bows

Second year of University, Sunday, around 2pm.

I slowly regain conciousness unsure of where I am, one crusted eye slowly pulls itself open and I breathe a sigh of relief, my own bedroom, my own bed.

I reach an arm across my bed, searching for a phone so I could check the time. My memories start creeping up on me, we drank a bottle, we watched a band, we headed to a club, but then, nothing; a psychological road block. My phone confirms that I was still compos mentis and texting friends at 5am, my memories I figure, stop at around midnight.

I manage to persuade my second (of two) eyes to get in the game, I try to focus and blearily I make out a tall shape, a figure is looming over me, unmoving, silent.

My eyes adjust once again.

It is a tree.

As I regain my senses and my unease grows, I realise something is wrong with my arm. I throw the covers off my body. I am fully dressed, including a pair of soil covered shoes, the arm of my hoody is ripped and blood stains the sheets.

I remove the sweatshirt, my elbow is bleeding; not severely, but it is clear that there is more to the injury internally.

I need water badly, I climb out of bed, ignoring the tree for the moment and open the door to my bedroom, a wall of stacked chairs, road signs and miscellaneous furniture crashes into my room, this at least, is not unusual. A common prank in a student house full of moronic man-children.

No-one else is around, I speculate that they are either still asleep or in town, getting food or narcotics to fix their presumably equally as confused minds.

In the next few hours, I clean my injury, drag the tree outside into our backyard and eat a bacon sandwich (Cheddar, Jalapeños and hot sauce) whilst re-hydrating myself as best as I can.

After some time, a housemate returns and recounts being in my company until around 2am, at which time I was in one piece and tree-less. As per usual, the mystery only bothered me for the duration of the hangover.

Days pass, concern fades and I visit a doctor about the occasional pain in my elbow; He explains that I have a needle of bone floating around  in my elbow, it is sporadically poking my skin from the inside. It should repair itself naturally after some time.

Injury explained, I return to day to day life and a year passes.

I am in a youth hostel in London, staying for a few weeks whilst I work as an intern for Al Gore's television station, 'Current TV'. I am telling stories to 2 Greek teenagers and searching for a photograph on an old phone (I had broken my normal phone shortly before the trip) to prove one of the outlandish tales.

We look through some photo's, have a good laugh and I notice that there are a few videos on the memory card. Some I remember taking (friend doing stupid dance, my dog being strange, some gigs I went to) and one I do not recognise from the thumbnail presented on the screen.

I press play.

Within the first three seconds, my memory of the night almost a year prior is returned to me.

The video is shot in a first person perspective and clearly shows me, hurtling down one of the biggest hills in Plymouth, on the back of a shopping trolley, the video ends abruptly with a crunch and the image flips sideways.

Silence, heavy breathing and blackness.

Mystery solved.

Six months after this trip I would receive an identical injury on my opposite elbow when falling out of a shopping trolley not five minutes from that hill.

3 years later I would suffer an agonising hand injury at the mercy of an industrial trolley outside a PC World when trying to ride it across a car park.

I have no idea what I ever did to the cart community but I am keeping a very close eye on my wheelbarrow.