DANGIT Mr. Keller .......

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

 ............ my screen is all blurry again!   

 

 

I could actually smell the hospital .......    

 

 

Thank You   

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

Singin' Sue 71615

 ..... read Short Stories ....

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

A correspondent wrote me to let him know I'd hit him when he lived, with a recent entry.

It seems he too has been burned -- we are fellow survivors of badge packing, and of traumatic heat injury -- and his accounts genuinely ran that dipper of cold water right down my back bone to read it!

Back in 19 and 80, I started shift with my local police department and finished the day in hospital in critical condition.

I myself lay in Intensive Care, staring at the fish eye mirror bolted to the wall beside the doorway, watching the reflected image of a uniformed deputy US Marshal waiting for me to so much as throw one leg over the side rail of my bed, so he could turn around and drive a few 125 grain Remington .357s through my wish bone.

In my mind I was what I hated most.

I was a cop killer.

It wasn't until my bruised brain recovered from its injuries, not until I'd spoken with my brother badge packer on the phone -- not until I laid hands on him and said, "YOU'RE NOT A GHOST" -- not until that moment was I was convinced that mine was a false memory, and I could relax.

That real life experience is why that burnt deputy gripped his pretty young wife's hand and said, "You're not a ghost."