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“There was a time,” he thought as his hands worked the wound wider, “that this would have grossed me right out.”
When he’d joined the resistance, he’d been a young boy who fainted at the sight of blood. Now look at him. Up to his elbows in patient number nineteen and it wasn’t even noon.
A heavy leather apron took the splashes of the blood as the screaming young man’s artery hosed the doctor down. It was all field medicine which meant that the books became guidelines and time was a monster. It was an Easter egg hunt for shrapnel, hopefully before the patient died.
The rain had soaked through the sandbags, making the floor of the place into a mudbath. The blood joined in and swirled in coagulating paisleys over the course of the day.
The doctor had removed his own moustache after the first time it had been soaked. The stink of blood hovered underneath his nose until he had had to shave the hair off. He’d come a long way from the eager young boy who’d signed up to fight so long ago.
The patient gurgled as his airways started filling up with blood. The doctor dug deeper. His hand fluttered like a salmon in between the back of the lung and snuggled up to the liver. There. A piece like a pencil tip grazed his fingertips. Slowly, he pinched it so that it would not slip deeper into the patient’s body.
He dragged it out and put in into the dirty dish with the others.
Quickly he closed the rib-spreaders and started barking commands to the nurses to get the boy sewn up. At least he’d lost consciousness and wasn’t thrashing around like most of them usually did.
He reached for the cigarettes in his jacket pocket by the door when two stretcher-men came crashing through the door carrying another young boy crying out for his mother.
Back to work.
tags
When he’d joined the resistance, he’d been a young boy who fainted at the sight of blood. Now look at him. Up to his elbows in patient number nineteen and it wasn’t even noon.
A heavy leather apron took the splashes of the blood as the screaming young man’s artery hosed the doctor down. It was all field medicine which meant that the books became guidelines and time was a monster. It was an Easter egg hunt for shrapnel, hopefully before the patient died.
The rain had soaked through the sandbags, making the floor of the place into a mudbath. The blood joined in and swirled in coagulating paisleys over the course of the day.
The doctor had removed his own moustache after the first time it had been soaked. The stink of blood hovered underneath his nose until he had had to shave the hair off. He’d come a long way from the eager young boy who’d signed up to fight so long ago.
The patient gurgled as his airways started filling up with blood. The doctor dug deeper. His hand fluttered like a salmon in between the back of the lung and snuggled up to the liver. There. A piece like a pencil tip grazed his fingertips. Slowly, he pinched it so that it would not slip deeper into the patient’s body.
He dragged it out and put in into the dirty dish with the others.
Quickly he closed the rib-spreaders and started barking commands to the nurses to get the boy sewn up. At least he’d lost consciousness and wasn’t thrashing around like most of them usually did.
He reached for the cigarettes in his jacket pocket by the door when two stretcher-men came crashing through the door carrying another young boy crying out for his mother.
Back to work.
tags