* Reference last post prior to reading *
A young couple who had gotten into a car accident came
storming in on gurneys in the middle of the night. I had long abandoned the
magazine doodling and was elbow deep in vending machine cookie wrappers and
sugar coma when the slamming of the doors and medical alarms rustled me up.
Both the girl and guy were attached to oxygen and nurses began swarming them as
they turned into separate rooms across from each other. Their invisible tethers
called to me. For a moment, I hung in the middle of the hallway, my boots
squeaking along the tile, watching the life unravel around me. I stepped into
the man’s room first. The smell of iron hit my nose like a hammer and the
desire for sleep completely dissipated. I watched patiently as the nurses
worked in a circle around the doctor. The sound of clothes being ripped echoed
in the room, and drops of blood seeped down from the surgical bed to the cold
floor. I found myself licking my lips instinctually, and flicked my eyes back
towards the man’s chest.
When his
shirt came off, and the deep gashes in his side and abdomen came to life from
the oxygen exposure, I let out a small gasp.
The crunch
of bone gritted in the air.
For once I
didn’t feel queasy.
I was
transfixed.
I was
entranced.
I was
hungry.
I
was…smiling.
I walked
over to the man, getting a close up of the damage. Internal bleeding, collapsed
lungs, broken hip and collarbone, and a heavy blow to the abdomen; not exactly
an easy fix. I felt for the girl across the hall, but all I could see was silent life
there. I could tell she was already stable. The call came through and it was
for him. When it pulled me in, I stuck my arm out between two nurses, and
reached for his abdomen drenched in blood. The blanket of images enveloped me,
making me let out an exhalation of relief. When it was over, there was nothing but
static and emptiness. I stared at my hand for the longest time, turning it from
side to side, fascinated by the staining of A negative. The crimson glistened
in the luminescent light, thick with iron and gloss. It felt extraordinary, the
overcoming of rapture, so much so that I found myself putting my hand up to my
mouth, and licking each finger one by one like a cat bathing its self after a
messy dinner. As the clean up began, I walked into the hallway, vaguely aware
of the residue left on my face and hand. I sat in a nearby chair and
contemplated, waiting for normalcy to return. It was achingly slow, but I
started to get a grasp of where I was again.
It had been
ages.
