Flashing strobes of white, blue and red ricochet off the walls in a surreal display somehow both indicative of and unrelated to the events. Someone was shot. Abdo. Dead. Young. Doesn’t seem like enough blood. Dispute in the alleyway outside of a bar. Drop the weapon. That’s what they say when there’s an armed suspect threatening them or someone else. Drop the weapon. They’re unco-operative. Drop the weapon. We don’t wear bullet-proof vests. We’re helping the target of a desperate armed murderers rage. Why are we here? He’s not getting any more dead but we sure could. The police are all aiming at a door. The shooter is behind that door. The one with the window just over there. We need to get the fuck out of here. The strobes of all the emergency vehicles turn the alley into some sort of carnival of fear. Their guns are drawn. We need to get the fuck out of here. NOW. The firefighter and my partner don’t seem to be picking up on the situation. I’m getting angry. We need to get the fuck out of here NOW. They’re still screaming commands to drop the weapon.

We’re out trick-or-treating with the kids on Hallowe’en. An ambulance is at a call up one of the narrow roads of the nearby townhouse complex, lights dancing across the shadows of the night. We avoid that section. I can’t look toward or away as we walk by. My head is one of those old scrambled pay-per-view cable feeds. There’s no gunman, no police with weapons drawn, no one is yelling or dead. There’s just Hallowe’en. Well, outside anyway. In my head is a different story.

We roll the patient on the board. My partner and the firefighter are worrying about c-collars and straps. He’s already dead but we could all be a lot fucking deader. We can do this shit in the truck. No one will fault us. We need to get the fuck out of here. It doesn’t seem real. The strobing lights from the vehicles at the end of the alley make movement look like snapshots rather than fluid action. It’s as if I’m outside myself watching that door while I physically work to get the patient off the ground and onto the stretcher. Why I don’t know. It’s not as if watching a shot stops it. We get the patient on the stretcher well enough to get out of the alley and to the ambulance. The packaging of the patient is a blur. We did what we always did. On route to the hospital the officer who came with us told us they all drew their weapons when they realized the gunman was behind that door aiming at all of us as we were initially approaching.

We came around the back bend in the townhouse driveway and the crews were still on scene. The kids went over to their old scout leaders house for some candy which of course had to be on that road and of course she was standing outside investigating the commotion. I stayed back looking the other way. We didn’t walk past. We went back the other way. I felt like a freak but I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t walk past or go closer. Fear. Shame. Weakness. Despite dealing better with these triggers they always find a way to mock me once in a while.

I had never seen internal defibrillation before. Lungs visibly expanding with each artificial breath. The minions of modern medicine were doing things I couldn’t describe with equipment I couldn’t name half of. I told the ALS crews’ paramedic student to take it all in ’cause this shit rarely to never happens in front of us. The trauma room. This was back before I would leave as fast as I could, back when I still wanted to see the outcomes. He didn’t make it. He wasn’t going home.

Two days after Hallowe’en I keep finding myself on that call. I don’t dream, I just don’t sleep. I lay awake in bed while my minds eye leads me through that stroboscopic alley over and over. It plays in my head while the day goes by. Snapshots.

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They tell you it’s an injury but they diagnose it all using labels for disorders and diseases. That’s why they all stay away. Can’t wash off the inside. Once you get that dirty… When you finally admit there’s dirt it never looks clean again. What happened to 15 years? Somewhere there’s a lost service award I’ll never see proving it. I have the paystubs. Did it mean anything to anyone but me? Why do I even care if it does? Because it would be nice to know that the co-workers and management who expected me to care about the duties of my job care too. That’s all any of us wants, isn’t it? To have someone notice and care? Watching life move on without you hurts. I see the pictures on the news; I’m not needed there. It all gets dealt with without me. Socially? Isolation has 2 sides, and when both are in agreement the conclusion seems obvious. Why would I want to be around people who are willing to just let me disappear? What’s worse: a fake somebody or a real nobody? These are the human connections I supposedly need for my sanity and well-being?