Sunday, November 3, 2013

Prompt: Finding the right point of view, part 2



Sarah glanced up from her last patient chart when the doors whooshed open. She dropped the chart with a clatter on the counter and ran towards Frank, carrying a bloody woman in his arms. “Gurney,” she shouted, pulling out her stethoscope and reaching Frank at the same time as the rolling bed. He stretched the woman out on it, and Sarah fell in step as they wheeled it into the first empty room. The woman had a thready pulse, and as Sarah’s eyes focused on her, she could see why.

The woman was covered with bleeding wounds everywhere that Sarah could see - -her hands and wrists below the black leather jacket, her throat above the open collar, and her face and scalp all had deep scratches, cuts, or holes.

“GSW?” Sarah asked Frank. When he hesitated, she glanced up at him. He blushed, and her jaw dropped. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Frank! You didn’t assess at the scene? You moved her? What were you thinking?” He started to stammer and she waved him away. “Never mind. You’re off duty. Get out of here.” He took a step back and stopped. She glared. “I mean it, Frank. Out. Home. Now.” She returned to the patient and didn’t give Frank another thought.

Okay, assess, Sarah thought, staring down at the most beautiful face she’d ever seen. Dark tanned skin over high cheekbones. Not Hispanic. Too big for Indian. Exotic. Beautiful heavy mesh necklace and bracelet cuffs.  No wait, that’s not what I’m supposed to be assessing. What’s wrong with me? Lots of bleeding wounds, some need stitched, but none fatal, or she would already have bled out. No GSW visible through the jacket or black denim jeans. Have to get the jacket off at least for a better view of the torso. Could have a concussion.

“Honey, what happened to you,” Sarah muttered.

Sarah moved quickly over the body, running through her assessment with practiced efficiency once she snapped herself back into professional nurse mode. She strapped the EKG to the woman’s finger and flipped on the monitor switches. Then she unsnapped the heavy jacket and pulled it open. She was reaching behind the woman’s neck for the clasp of the necklace when the patient’s eyes snapped open. Sarah froze in her stare. Cold cat eyes. Sarah blinked. It wasn’t possible. The woman clutched her white jacket with a bloody hand.

She whispered, “Run.”

                                 
Dogs in house
Houdini, Brindle


Time writing:
~20 minutes


October word count:
3,056

2 comments:

  1. ...continued...

    The dirt tingled against her fingers. Reesa had been using some kind of magic. Something for the solstice show? Whatever had she meant about the point of view?

    Telia looked both ways, not wanting to be caught out like Reesa had been, then touched her chin to the path, looking out where she thought she remembered Reesa doing so. She was looking out towards the pond, but the water was not visible from so low. The flower beds beside the path filled the bottom half of her field of view, and a large leafy plant behind arced over the top, making a sort of arched portal. In between was the trunk of something reasonably distant, and, beyond that, the far side of the pond. She crawled forward until she thought the trunk would be out of the way, and put her chin on the ground again.

    Now the arch revealed the gazebo on the pond’s edge. Telia sat up and placed her chin on her knees in her thinking pose. If you could see the gazebo from here, someone in the gazebo could see here – as a little spot of ground under the leaves of a plant.

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  2. Had to run before I could post! MIssed the next day though, but maybe I'll continue to part 3 at some point...

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