Besides, hysteria is only possible with an audience. You know what you need to do to keep alive. Folks will just screw you up with their reactions about how what happened is so horrible. First the emergency room folks letting you go ahead of them. Then the Franciscan nun screaming. Then the police with their hospital sheet. Jump to how life was when you were a baby and you could only eat baby food. You'd stagger over to the coffee table. You're up on your feet and you have to keep waddling along on those vienna sausage legs or fall down. Then you get to the coffee table and bounce your big baby head on the sharp corner. You're down, and man, oh man, it hurts. Still it isn't anything tragic until Mom and Dad run over.  Oh, you poor, brave thing.

Only then do you cry.