EMT-Basic
Sometimes it's hard to breathe.
Because I remember.
Dear God I remember.
It's not the inhale, it's the exhale.
The memories well up inside and make it hard to breathe and I try to force them out I try so damn hard but it. Doesn't.
I can still smell the blood sometimes.
And I try to breathe it out. Get it out of my system.
But I can't force it out, can't escape it, can't ride it out.
I remember how it pooled in the cot, gentle foam along its liquid edges. It wanted to be a ruby pink but hued more crimson on the black plastic. Maroon in the crevices.
He's dead now. He was alive when I got to him.
When I got the report there wasn't even a name. Unnamed patient. Deceased.
I know where he lives. The night was a stiff cold; the breeze cutting. Far enough from the city you can see hazy stars over the apartment complex. The buildings are a drab brown, I think. The flashing lights make it hard to tell. The dirt has pockets of grass. Roads mere bridges between potholes.
I don't remember his face. There wasn't much to see, filleted right cheek and purpled eyes bruised closed. Mouth agape and teeth jagged and yellow.
I guess I remember.
Thinking about it, I can smell it now. Just in the top of my left nostril, a quarter inch below my eye. I had four wipes in my hand and I couldn't mop it all up. The cot was covered in it and I couldn't mop it all up and I used four more and another four and then I used six and then I smelled it and
I remember a story I was told. About a time when someone pushed on a cot after it rained and the water squished out. But it squished out red with blood. They got a new cot.
After I got it clean I squished it. Mine didn't bleed.
I know the last face he saw. It wasn't mine. Sometimes it's mine that's last but not for him. A pained face. Pained and cruel. That's the last face he saw.
It took about a day and a half before it bothered me. I remember when I got a whiff, just a single smell, and I knew. I knew. I knew it would bother me later but then I forgot. It took a day and a half and I remembered.
It was three days before I could breathe easy again. I could exhale. Three days before I wasn't trying to giggle just to get that terrible feeling out of my chest. There was nothing I could do about the smell. Nothing I can do right now.
People always say they're there to talk. And you can tell when they mean it. But it's 1am. And I can smell it. And I can't think. I just remember. I remember moving his limp body and the blood and it trailed and it coated the cot so I cleaned it but it wouldn't clean it just wouldn't clean. Eventually it did. But forever it didn't.
My friends say I laugh too loud now. That my words are heavy. I've worn the inside of a man's head. I remember that too.