VII
"Does it hurt?" said the doctor, inspecting Ailine's arm.
"A little bit"
Ailine was in a small wooden infirmary. It was the first time than an actual medic checked her, but she wasn't sure if he was an ACTUAL medic because he was incredibly young, probably younger than her or about the same age.
"And now? It hurts?"
"Yes, it does"
She quickly became bored by the meticulous and slow diagnostic that the doctor was trying to make. There was a small window besides her and she wanted to sneak peek outside, she hadn't seen her motorcycle since the accident so she wanted to know where it was and how bad had the damage been.
"Could you please hold still?" said the doctor a little impatient.
"Sorry I was just... trying to see where my bike was, I hadn't seen it."
"Don't worry; I'm sure it's fine."
Ailine didn't like those kinds of empty consolations, in fact, that made her even more impatient, her sight returned to the window.
"Is this going to take any longer?"
"Young lady" he said while holding her arm a little bit tight, "I need you to remain patient and to tell me if it..."
"AAAUUUUU" she screamed.
"I will take that as a yes" the doctor concluded.
"Are you done?"
"Yes, that would be all..."
He took his glasses off and he step aside.
"So?" Ailine asked.
"It's just a sprain; your arm is not really broken."
Ailine felt a strong relief; however, the pain in her arm was still very present. Broken or not, her arm was giving her a hard time.
"So... what should I do?, my arm still hurts a little bit"
"Well, try not to lift any heavy thing, let it rest and protect it a lot... use your bike only to get home, you don't want another accident like that."
That was the last thing that Ailine wanted to hear.
"When will the pain go away?"
"Well... if you do what I say and you stay out of trouble, probably about two weeks."
She wasn't going to do what he said and she was going to be in trouble. The Grey Canyon was becoming more of challenge than she actually imagined.
Outside the small infirmary Ailine was desperately looking for her bike, she returned to the place of the fall but there was nothing there. For a moment she even formulated the ridiculous idea that maybe this town had an old and ancient hatred toward motorcycles so they took it and secretly destroyed it.
"Hey young lady, come here" a couple of kids screamed at her.
Ailine went to where they were but they decided to run, so she followed them. They were running across the whole town and she was beginning to get tired about this, her arm began to ache and she was no longer up to the task of following these kids.
"What's the matter young lady?" one of them asked.
"I'm sorry, I just came from the infirmary and I don't have the energy for this"
The kids understood, so they said:
"Ok, don't worry, just stay there, will ya? We'll come back!"
Ailine didn't expect that answer.
"Ok, I'll be here"
She sat on the floor and the kids went away, the pain was starting to increase, so she grabbed her arm, it didn't resolve anything but at least it gave her some sort of placebo.
It was at this moment and for the first time that Ailine saw the town in its natural flow of activities. People visiting other people's houses, small business receiving a good deal of costumers and a lot of residents passing by, all of them greeting her with a colloquial "howdy".
Sheriff Tim Olson was also passing by.
"Howdy, young lady, I just spoke with the doctor, he told me that you should take it east by now."
"Yes, since I'm a biker I cannot make any promises but... I'll try."
Sheriff Olson saw how Ailine was grabbing her arm because of the pain.
"Well, you know, you should really try hard, for the sake of that arm."
"Yeah, I will get use to ignoring the pain, don't worry"
The sheriff was confused by that answer.
"Well you know, pain is not something that should be ignored, that's the whole point of it"
"Don't worry, Sheriff. I need to ignore it, otherwise if I think too much about it I'll crash into the first thing I see."
The sheriff finally got the message.
"Ok young lady. But if at any moment the pain becomes too difficult to ignore...
"... I know, I know. She interrupted him. "I will pay a visit to the doctor."
That was not actually the suggestion that the sheriff was going to make.
"Well, you know... I respect what doctors do, and I know that most of the times they do a splendid job. But I'm also a follower of the more... spiritual kind of medicine."
Ailine had no idea what the sheriff was talking about.
"Spiritual, you say?"
He had seen that face of skepticism and confusion before.
"Yes... I know what you're thinking about, but you would understand if you try it."
Ailine was even more confused.
"But, what do you mean by that?"
The sheriff began to look for the right sequence of words to express this.
"You know... sometimes... we jump to the conclusion that we need some sort of... outside drug or outside stimulus to cure everything... and there are cases when that it's true. But... to be honest, any superficial wound is sometimes maximize by something inside, so what really needs to be taken care of is what's inside and believe me, no outside force can do this, only yourself."
Ailine realize that the sheriff was a much smarter man than she originally assumed. In some way, he was able to read her pretty well from the first moment that he saw her and now, she understood everything.
There was a small silence in the conversation but by the way that Ailine was looking at him, he knew that she got the message.
"But... how can you do that?" she asked him.
The sheriff smiled because that was the exact question that he was expecting.
"If some day you wanna learn, I would be delighted to present you my teacher, he taught me everything I now, and I figure you two will get along pretty well."
"I will consider" Ailine said.
Finally the kids returned.
"Here it is, young lady"
The kids were accompanied by an adult and they were bringing Ailine's bike back to her.
"Looks like she has completely recovered" said the sheriff.
The bike had an entirely new tire and it look almost new.
"I can't believe it!" she said, with a great smile in her face.
"Well, you better do, Rob here is one of the best mechanics of this whole county."
"Here you have, young lady!" said Rob the mechanic, "the tire you were using was rotten, but don't worry; now you have an entirely new tire in perfect conditions and ready to go."
Ailine didn't know how to thank them, but she also felt terribly ashamed.
"Thanks for everything, but, I'm so sorry, I don't have any money with me, right now.
"Don't worry, young lady." Rob said, "That won't be needed at all."
"You're already helping us by bringing Mrs.Pamel the food that she wants; it would be if we charged you instead of helping you."
Ailine didn't know what to say, so she let her silence and awkwardness speak. Rob and the sheriff laughed a little bit, Ailine thanked them one more time and she got on the bike.
"Can I go with you?" one of the kids asked.
"C'mon Mark, let the young lady go, she doesn't want to take care of spoiled kids like you" said Rob to the kid.
"Heeeeeeeeey" responded Mark.
All of them laughed, but Ailine laughter was the shortest. The image of the Grey Canyon invaded her head. She looked at the boy thinking: Believe me boy; you wouldn't wanna go where I'm going.
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