Easterly wind sharp on my skin, bright sunlight, buttery scents of spring mingling with city fumes, and the loud roar of traffic racing beside me. The pavements are filling up with rush hour pedestrians, but I am way faster than them, and I can see far more than any vehicle. To cycle to Sandra’s halls of residence in town is a joy. We’re in cherry blossom season and with each gust it falls like pink snow — covering everything within reach — trampled and gone in a flash.

It’s been a long day concentrating in a large auditorium with all the other dental students; listening until all the learning floats over my head. Sandra studies medicine and understands this very particular type of studious boredom. We are a match: Sandra and Ray. Ray and Sandra. Even my parents love her. You’re not supposed to settle down at university but it is the most natural thing with her.

Princes Street is bustling and I turn to cycle left down Leith Street when without warning someone steps out in front of me. There’s no time to break. I twist my handlebars in avoidance, veering into the road.

I see the bus. Madder and white block colours inexorably moving forward. The driver’s horn invasively booming, rattling my innards. I have a strange feeling, not of panic, but of deep regret. No flashing of my life in front of my eyes, just pure regret for being in this situation.

The crashing of the collision, my body and bike one in the confusion, then abrupt darkness. It is a darkness that doesn’t feel dead, I think, but adrift.

The heat is unbearable as I orientate myself. What is this fresh hell? Every limb feels cumbersome. There are tubes in my nose and arms, and I am aware I have a catheter in. I know enough not to go pulling at anything. I press a button for attention but I cannot find my voice yet.

“You are lucky”, they say.
“You were so close to the hospital.”
“Not everyone survives going under the wheel of a bus… you’ve sustained multiple injuries including a punctured lung, shattered pelvis, and broken spine to name a few.”

Nurse Michelle and Nurse Susan are caring and gentle and matter-of-fact.

The madder and white — the shrill ear-splitting noise of the crash — imprinted in my mind forever. I was certain I was milliseconds away from death.

My super surgeon turns out to be Sandra’s sister’s newly ex-husband which makes for some fairly awkward post-op chat, Sandra’s sister still being utterly heartbroken.

Of course I have a visitor. There she is. The nurses tell me she has been calling in every single day I have been unconscious. Her poor tired eyes. She’s looking thinner. It’s been two weeks and the blossom has now burst into masses of bright green leaves on the trees outside my window. She kisses my forehead like a mother would a child.

I find my voice: “Sandra, will you marry me?”