I was 17 and somewhat nieve
A boy scout ready to serve
As a volunteer in a late night
Emergency Room

I was told it would be ordinary
Me a Dentist's son who dreamed
Of following that life of service
But ignorant of brutal blood letting

Until that solitary night
That night that paints
Images of drunken humanity
Soaked in stale sweat soaked blood

That Night when a car drove up
To the Emergency room entrance
That night when the rear doors opened
To a rear seat floating in blood

Still alive in his drunken sweaty squalor
A man almost an empty vessel of life
Was rolled into the operating room
A black man who was as good as dead

Only I did not know it
I did not know that he fought
In his drunken stupor abusing
His ex girlfriend

I did not know his brother
Protected himself with a butcher knife
By stabbing and goring his attacker
Like a pig ready for slaughter

All I saw was a barely coherent man
Laying on a gurny with a two inch
Incision above his shoulder
And a sliced arm

All I saw was a cooly competent
Ambidextrous surgeon
Stitching the open wounds
of a Deadman

And he could of cared less
About this human flotsam
That showed up on his table
As he matter of factly said he had passed

Removed his surgeons gloves
Walked away as if nothing had happened
Only that nothing is still there with me
That night of death and darkness

As I drove home in shock
My wheels bumped twice
As a rabbit ran beneath my wheels
Dead as the human refuse I left behind

And I felt nothing

05/03/2011

Author's Note: This Happened. Its in response to the Way Down in the Hole prompt, That triggered this vivid memory of utter brutality. I was always disturbed at the surgeons detachment.

Posted on 05/03/2011
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