It was hard for Adam to tell if his headache or his boredom were more painful. For what seemed like hours he had waited in the emergency room lobby, too 'hurt' to be allowed to leave yet not bad enough to warrant immediate attention. The events of the crash that had landed him here were already fading, which was strange to him; it seemed like such an event would leave a terribly lasting impact upon his mind, but already the image was slipping away. He remembered sitting comfortable in the back end of the vehicle after thoroughly thanking a young lady who had given her seat up for him (she insisted that her stop was imminent, but Adam was sure she was being kindhearted--a true Samaritan. Not that he was of such an advanced age to explicitly need it, of course, but refusing the offer would have been poor manners) and peering out at the bustling New York cityscape through a smudged window. Suddenly there were load noises, crunches and steely shrieks, and a bone-rattling impact. Adam had been spared severe injury by propping himself up with his legs, having been involved in a collision while aboard public transportation about three years prior, but the woman who had bequeathed to him her seat wasn't so lucky.

Though the emergency squads appeared promptly, somehow cutting through the dense traffic congesting the busy streets, they were preceded by flocks of gawking onlookers who offered no assistance to the people in the accident. That much Adam remembered. Before long the civilians had gone their separate ways, dismissing the collision as merely another casualty of their city. Adam marveled at the callousness of it; did the big city strip its countless inhabitants of compassion for their fellows? Adam had concluded he wouldn't stick around to find out and would depart back to Pennsylvania at the next opportunity. The bus crash put something of a dent in his enthusiasm for touring the Big Apple.

For now, though, he was stuck in the emergency room...or the lobby, rather. While there had been no major issues on the bus, the paramedics had insisted some of the passengers be screened at the nearest clinic for less-than-obvious injuries. Adam had been at the forefront, rushed to the dreary-eyed medical personal to make sure none of his elderly bones were broken, and left to sit in the waiting room while the more perilous hurts were assessed when he was found to be uninjured. The 'doctors' were almost all young, barely out of college if Adam judged correctly. A few hours in and he couldn't help wonder that if, in their youthful rush, they had forgotten him. A headache accosted him in the meantime, starting out tolerable but growing more intolerable with every passing minute. Finally he could stand it no more, and with a brusque wave in the general direction of the person behind the counter he left the clinic. He had hoped to stay until he could make sure that the young lady who'd been so nice to him on the bus was alright, but he assured himself that her kindliness would bring fortune to her side.

By God's grace the lot were he had left the family car was only a block away from the emergency service clinic. On the way he popped an ibuprofen from a little metal case in his wallet and downed it, careful not to allow the crowd to jostle the object from him. He felt an obligation not to mentally label some of the people around him as suspicious, but the suspicions lurked in his mind nevertheless. He was finally alone when the roar of the city was muffled by the frame of his car, providing a hint of relief from his pounding migraine. Drawing strength in the assumption that he was on the road to recovery, he slid his key into ignition, shifted into reverse, and eased his way into traffic. The outdated GPS flickered on and he inputted his desired destination into the device as he waited at the first red light. A few seconds later he was homeward bound.

Hours passed and Adam was forced to pull into a roadside motel at about dinnertime, feeling terribly ill. Home would clearly have to wait until tomorrow, but since he had originally planned to head back to Pennsylvania tomorrow evening it mattered little. Dinner would have to wait as well; the very notion of eating made his gut convulse. He bought a room for the night from a clerk who managed to look even more decrepit than Adam felt, though this individual's hands was neither sweating nor shaky like Adam's. Was this some sort of flu? Perhaps he had gotten it in the emergency room. Not long after Adam shambled inside, waves of stifling warmth and nauseating cold washed over him and the energy drained from his body faster than bathwater down an unplugged drain. Wondering why God would allow him to survive a bus crash almost unscathed only to suffer at the hands of some sickness, he collapsed into bed after placing his valuables in a bedside drawer, and gradually drifted into a fitful sleep, still in his clothes.