The Ambulance

Last night at work, as I stood alone in front of the bar, an ambulance came from off in the distance. I don't know where it was going or for what purpose. It was quiet at first, slowly growing louder until within sight. Everyone stopped what they were doing, putting their conversations on hold as it sped by with a penetrating screech, and as soon as it arrived it was gone. Everyone continued amongst themselves.

Sometimes - most of the time - you don't see the flickering lights. You hear it echoing through the passageways and dark corners of a city, but your paths do not cross. Occasionally you are where it stops, perhaps the frantic aftermath of a scene or the simple curiosity of what is going on next door. I suspect if we look deeper we find a fair amount of inconvenience: an ambulance that slows traffic and blocks lanes; the cars that slow and stop in both directions; the piercing blow of the sirens designed to create a path.

I also suspect those who have been personally affected by an ambulance think about things differently. It comes when someone's life, for that day, month, or forever, has been permanently changed. While it certainly does not bring about these changes, it is the vessel, the symbol that encapsulates it.

I have gone back many times to my mother, riding in an ambulance after her significant other had suffered an aortic aneurism and was slowly slipping away. I cannot imagine what chaotic emotion must have been bottled behind those thick metal doors, visible only through a small window in the back. I think about the ambulance speeding toward the hospital where eventually this person would leave a lifeless body, and the fact that this happens everyday somewhere in the world. I think then about the paradox between those little tragedies and the cars nearby that have no idea what is going on. I have been lucky in my life to have avoided ambulances, but surely there will be a time it will come for me or someone I know. The longer we hold off on this, the better we are, but we do not have to look far to appreciate its absence in our lives.