Day Sixty-five

Today's words:

Ambulance

Minute

Mast

Cottage

Plastic bag

"The ambulance

"Will be here in just a minute.

"Hold tight to the mast

"While I jump off and head for the cottage

To get a plastic bag."

But a motorcycle

Blocked my path. I yelled at the man on the motorcycle:

"Get out of the way! There's an ambulance

"Coming through!" He moved and I ran after that plastic bag.

I knew I only had a minute

To make it to the cottage

And back to the boat, where my sister still held the mast,

I hoped. As I got there I saw, holding the mast,

The man from the motorcycle.

He said he'd sent my sister back to the cottage

To direct the ambulance

When it arrived. But that was just a minute

Ago and I hadn't passed her as I returned with the plastic bag.

I wrapped the plastic bag

Over the spot where the broken-off mast

Was sticking out of Roger's torso. "We've only got a minute,"

I said to the man from the motorcycle,

"Where is that damn ambulance?"

Just then I heard a siren arriving down by the cottage.

It sped past the cottage

As I tightened the knot on the plastic bag.

The ambulance

Arrived and the EMTs got out. They looked at the mast

Being held in place by the man and at his discarded motorcycle.

They knew it would only take a minute

To remove it, but in that minute

Roger could die. My sister ran up from the cottage

And stood next to the motorcycle.

I held the plastic bag in place

As the EMTs got Roger ready for them to remove the mast

And get him into the ambulance.

It all took less than a minute. The plastic bag

Worked and the EMTs sped past the cottage, having removed the mast.

We jumped on the motorcycle to follow the ambulance.