Walk it off

 "Keep your eye on the ball."

That's what I was thinking as I hugged the edge of the trail, knowing it would soon turn from farmland to baseball field.
My slow jog was made even slower by the sounds of the game up ahead.

I had already procrastinated my way to this moment, saving the decision to continue a two-day-old running streak with a single loop around the neighborhood until the sun had just begun to sink.

As I reached the field a kid was stepping to the plate. I took my eyes off the path ahead, not to watch the pitch but to follow the ball should the batter slug it over the fence in my direction.

A swing and a miss.

I should have returned my gaze to the path ahead but I kept focused on the batter waiting for windup.
I'd seen enough leather-covered orbs of unyielding twine hit unintended targets with frightful force. There was that time at the stadium once, when an errant ball sailed past the ear of a knee-bounced toddler only to come to an abrupt stop into the shoulder of his knee-bouncing dad.

There was also the line drive that made its way past the protective gate on my son's helmet and into his jaw, somehow, miraculously, leaving a baseball-shaped bruise (complete with stitching) but also leaving all of his teeth intact. 
The pitch never came.

That's when my surroundings went sideways: green grass turned into blue sky and landed with a thud on the blacktop. I heard my teeth click together and felt the skin on my hands and shins grind against the asphalt.

For a moment that seemed endless, I lay in a heap trying to recover my breath and the composure that the fall had knocked out of me.

It may have taken only seconds to realize in my “baseball-ready” state I had drifted to the edge of the pavement and fallen off of it like a high-stacked heel. But the more I lay there the less I felt I might recover. I had to get up.

My left hand felt all sorts of wrong, but I used it to help my right hand push me into a standing position.

"Walk it off," I thought to myself as I saw all the people draped against the fences, dozens of them passively watching the game but actively ignoring the woman who had just gone "ass" over the proverbial "kettle."

"Walk. It. Off," said the voice in my head a little louder.

I started walking. And using my good hand, I felt all the bones of the bad one, pressing each one from distal phalanges to the carpals, taking deep breaths. I was mildly reassured by the absence of sharp pain. 

Of course, that's when I see the blood. Not a huge amount. But it's dark red and oozing from the patch of skin that is now dangling from the edge of my palm.

"Just a flesh wound," I guffaw aloud with the equally painful airs of an unconvincing British accent.
It would be ok, I told myself.

"Just. Walk. Faster." 

And that's when my inner voice hears the crack of a bat and the crowd erupting in applause.
It tells me to "Run."

"But keep your eyes on the road."

Which I am now happy to do.