Part VI - Take a Photograph

My ears ring with the idea that I have been shot.
I stare down at it, half expecting to see a wonderland cannon hole.

Suddenly I become aware of a paramedic speaking to me.
'Hey sweety, what's your name? Can you hear me?'
I tell her my name and she calls me by it just a little too often.

Like when I meet an exchange student and try to pronounce their name properly in my head, again and again until its cemented there.

But I know she'll forget me soon enough. She's got to, how else could you cope with stuff like this every single day?

Distance, thats how.

And I feel like thats what's happening to me, my mind is distancing itself from my body, from my life.

But, persistent in much the same way as telemarketers are 'persevering'; she breaks through.
'Can you move at all?'

I can move all right, I could move to punch her in the face and kick her in the shins.
HOW DARE SHE PULL ME BACK INTO THIS PLACE!
HOW DARE SHE MAKE ME FACE THIS!!!

But this is not what I say, and, just as a thousand times before, I do not say what I mean, or mean what I say for that matter.

'Yeah, I think so' meaning 'Yes, now get me the fuck out of here before I need a straight jacket to hold together the bits of my broken heart, mind, soul, body. But, you know, take your time'

'Ah, you might need to let go now, so we can take you out to the ambulance.'

Looking down to the floor, on my right hand side (the left hand side is murder of the enth degree) I realise we are still holding hands. The young copper tending you is saying the same.

We look at our hands, bloodied with regret and white knuckled with terror, and then look at each other, broken, distant, exhausted. Barely holding onto each other and reality.

In synchronisation, we shake our heads at the medics.
They look at each other, one shrugs.

It's a tricky little maneouvre to get us up without tearing our broken bodies completely to pieces, but we manage. You up first cos your injury is smallest, then all three of you help me.

A paramedic under my arm holding me up and my best friend holding me together, we hobble out of the building to a waiting makeshift hospital.

The world spins as I see old friends and enemies alike, scattered across the courtyard.

Injuries equalling and surpassing mine attach themselves to people from my year, and the years below. The year twelves are all off for home study before exams, lucky for some.

Seeing the people from my year, I remember when we met in this courtyard on the very first day of school, excited and scared.

Funny that we'd be here now, bleeding and shocked out of our skins.

Funny that our worlds are imploding right here, just like we thought they would on the first day of year eight.

Spinning, spinning, spinning.

Thankfully, I let go of your hand before I hit the floor.

It's funny how we disconnect ourselves just before we fall down, 'to save them'.

Honestly, I think I just didn't want you falling on me.