Crash Page #5

James waves the folder away. Catherine examines his body, aloofly

curious.

JAMES:

Where's the car?

CATHERINE:

Outside in the visitors, car park.

JAMES:

What!? They brought the car here?

CATHERINE:

My car, not yours. Yours is a complete

wreck. The police dragged it to the pound

behind the station.

JAMES:

Have you seen it?

CATHERINE:

The sergeant asked me to identify it. He

didn't believe you'd gotten out alive.

JAMES:

It's about time.

CATHERINE:

It is?

JAMES:

After being bombarded endlessly by road-

safety propaganda, it's almost a relief to

have found myself in-an actual accident.

INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAYS - NIGHT

James is taking his walk through the hallways, trundling his IV

stand along with him like an awkward pet.

A white-coated doctor - Vaughan - steps into the ward from a room

at the end of the hall. He is bare-cheated under his white coat.

His strong hands carry a briefcase filled with photographs which

he pauses to shuffle through as though checking a map.

As James approaches this new visitor, Vaughan's pock-marked jaws

chomp on a piece of gum, creating the Impression that he might be

hawking obscene pictures around the wards, pornographic X-ray

plates and blacklisted urinalyses. He sports copious scar tissue

around his forehead and mouth, rumpled and puckered as though

residues from some terrifying act of violence.

Vaughan looks James up and down, taking in every detail of his

injuries with evident interest.

VAUGHN:

James Ballard?

JAMES:

Yes?

VAUGHAN:

Crash victim?

JAMES:

Yes.

Vaughan shuffles his photos again. James manages to make out the

shapes of a few crushed and distorted vehicles caught in lurid,

flash-lit news-style. Vaughan flips through them distractedly,

then with an unexpected, almost flirtatious flourish, slides them

back into his briefcase and tucks it under his arm.

VAUGHAN:

We'll deal with these later.

He flashes James an enigmatic smile, and then walks off down the

hallway.

As James turns to continue on, a young woman comes out of the same

room that Vaughan did and moves towards him using a dark wooden

walking stick. She presses her face into her raised shoulder,

possibly to hide the bruise marking her right cheekbone.

The woman is Dr. Helen Remington, whose husband died in her car

crash with James.

James stops as she approaches. He speaks without thinking.

JAMES:

Dr. Remington...?

The woman looks up at James as she continues her approach. She

does not falter, but changes her grip on the cane as if preparing

to thrash him across the face with it. She moves her head in a

peculiar gesture of the neck, deliberately forcing her injury on

him.

She pauses when she reaches the doorway, waiting for him to step

out of her way. James looks down on the scar tissue on her face, a

seam left by an invisible zip three inches long, running from the

corner of her right eye to the apex of her mouth.

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