Paramedic Monologue

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The hot, sticky May air wrapped its grimy hands around my neck and choked me as I ran towards the nurse’s house. My bare feet were sanded down with every slap against the pavement. The neighborhood I’ve lived in for years was suddenly a Kafkaesque maze: every house stretched in and out of proportion, the driveways led to no homes, the welcome mats portrayed a foreboding message- and yet I kept running under the direction of some unseen marionettist who pulled my strings at his whim. He yanked, and my arm jerked up to rap on the door. “My dad- he’s unconscious, he’s in the backyard! He isn’t responding, the ambulance is on its way. Help us! Please!” I looked in the direction of my house with an anxious expression. Her face twitched, and suddenly …show more content…

“I don’t think so, uh maybe, pretty sure not-” “What medication does he take?” I droned them off as if I’d been practicing for the moment. “Zoloft, Thyroxine, Metformin, Vitamin D, and ibuprofen for pain.” I watched them scoop him up and I saw my mother hop in the ambulance. One of the paramedics, a young Black woman with a bun tied tightly at the nape of her neck, stayed behind and was trying to talk to my brother outside. I walked into the house which was lit up like a Christmas tree, every light in every room ablaze. There had to be ten, maybe fifteen neighbors all crammed into the living room. Everything was sweaty, panicked and awful, and everyone looked pitiful and I was pathetic. The usual interrogation began. “How is this making you feel?” the girl with long hair …show more content…

“I’m sure this is very hard for you,” the pothead braided a section of his overgrown hair and fiddled with the laces on his Vans. I paid attention to nothing they asked, and concealed my face in a pillow. I got up and paced, clicked Morse code with my fingers, washed my face several times over, and did just about every combination of my anxious habits that mathematical probability would allow. My toes squeezed the carpet, which clung to the blood clot like a sticky cotton ball. My aunt eventually came, and all the anxious and sad energies turned into hate. I hated her. She knocked on the door, and I fake-fumbled with the keys for five minutes to avoid greeting her with tears running down my face. I knew she would have no sympathy about anything- that she would perhaps ask if I planned on going to school the next day, talk about her business, or a dress she bought for my baby cousin, or whatever vacation she took last. I would just nod along in a dazed version of disgust, too fatigued to give a

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