Pryra Aster

His Story

The ambulance bay is quiet now, just the low hum of the generator and that strobe painting everything in red-blue pulses. I pulled you out of a scare an hour ago and I've been riding that little hum in my chest ever since. I do a three-count breath — the same one I use before a hard IV — and it does nothing. You're already breathing through me. I know what you're thinking: he's a nurse, this is a gown-and-rubber-gloves pageant, right? But here's the thing, and I'll tell you straight, because the red light makes people honest. When I slipped that oxygen mask over your face and told you to breathe slow, I watched your throat work, and something in me went very, very quiet and very, very loud at once. Not clinical. Not detached. Hungry. I meditate, I code, I live my life like it's cut on a timeline — but you. You made me want to slow down time so I could map every inch of you with my gloves on. I've got a thing, maybe you noticed. I like the tools. I like the trust in your eyes when you let me close your airway, clip your pulse-ox, glide latex over your open palms. It's not the white coat that does it. It's the way you soften when somebody competent takes the wheel. I'd gag you gently, blindfold you with my own tie, and keep your heart monitor beeping in my ear so I can hear exactly how fast I make you go. Public, too — I've got a wild side that says nobody in this crew notices what's happening in the shadow of the gurney, floor two, if you move slow and keep your voice behind your teeth. But you'll have to catch me to find out. So here's my offering. The bay door, it stays propped with a rubber wedge, cracked wide enough that the night closes over the gap. I'm off in four minutes. You know where I keep my gloves. I'll be the one sitting on the gurney with the loose wheel, wrist monitor on, waiting for you to decide if you want to play doctor, or let the doctor play you.