Crossing Borders

The door to the women’s restroom slowly opened and she stumbled out, keeping herself from falling by holding on to the wall and slowly pulling herself straight up. The front of her cerulean blouse was soaked a deep, dark, red. She was bleeding from both her nose and mouth and when she tried to speak, all that came out was a blood-tinted saliva bubble. Both eyes were swollen almost to the point of being shut and her nose, obviously broken, pointed awkwardly to the left. A piece of her right ear was missing, as if it had been bitten off. She tried to walk, but could no longer endure the pain of putting pressure on her severely sprained left ankle, so she surrendered to clinging to the wall. Neck muscles no longer able to support the weight, her head fell to her chest. She cried silently as she struggled to lift it. When she finally did, she again opened her mouth to speak. What came out was a gurgling that sounded somewhat like help me, right before her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell, unconscious, with the sound of bone and flesh hitting the Terrazzo-tiled floor of Tia Tina’s Mexican Restaurant.