Short Story: Saving Souls, Ten A Penny

Short Story: Saving Souls, Ten A Penny

One of them came running towards me. It took me by surprise I have to say. I mean, one minute I was minding my own business, the next I was pinned to the wall. When I say pinned to the wall, I mean with fear. Wouldn’t you feel the fear too? I was sure there were millions of them, no trillions.

All eyes are on me now. I have nowhere to hide. It’s hard to believe that just this morning I said goodbye to my family and left them planning the weekend. There was laughter and I didn’t have a care in the world. I got into my car, waved hello to old Mr Donaldson across the road and drove off. He spends all his time clearing his gutters. I suspect you could eat your dinner out of them. The spring air filled me and I sang all the way. Now I love a good dose of country and western, but give me some sixties grooves and I’m a wriggling worm. Oh yeah, nothing comes close to my dance moves!

Cathy is a lovely girl. I think she’ll go far I really do. My work has definitely become easier having her to assist me. The hours in surgery can take it out of you, but with a good sidekick like her you know it’ll all go smoothly. In fact, we've had considerable improvement in the survival rate of our patients. The cases of stabbings and attacks have increased these last few years. Such a shame to see young lives being wasted on silly fighting and disagreements. They aren’t all accidental either. Some people just enjoy inflicting pain on others. It’s usually someone who has had a lot of pain themselves and wants to release the anger. My husband who’s a therapist could sort them out but they aren’t the type of people who go to therapy.

Is it me or are the eyes that are staring at me blending into one, like a big giant monster ready to eat me? I can feel myself shaking with fear. I hate being the centre of attention. Ever since I was a little girl I always tried to hide in a party, or if my parents were telling their friends about some achievement I had, I would run and hide. Silly really, being so shy. Oh the monster is babbling but I can’t understand it. Such odd sounds. Maybe if I ignore it it’ll go away. Even as a child I’d close my eyes when my father read me a story about some nasty creature in a fairy tale. He’d tell me to look at the pictures but I just wouldn’t. I hate nastiness. Which is odd for a surgeon who sees nastiness all the time. Yes I know, such a contradiction.

That’s better, I’m much warmer now. Maybe I’m dreaming. Damn those dreams. I’ve had bad dreams since I could remember. I’ve had good ones too. I have a very active imagination, and I’m glad of it. Nothing better than feeling alive, and an active imagination definitely makes you feel that. Sometimes my dreams are so powerful that I wake up in an emotional haze and feel exhausted. I need another sleep to get over them! But is this a dream? No it isn’t is it? It’s very ethereal but it isn’t a dream. I have to remember where I am. Oh I can feel the fresh air hit me. How nice. But hang on a minute I haven’t paid the bill! I never leave without paying the bill! That’s one of my principles and I will not be flexible on it. My husband laughs at my moral high ground and thinks I’m just a frustrated thief. So what if I drove ten miles back to a restaurant to give them the money for a lemonade spritzer because they hadn’t added it to the bill? I drank it so I should pay for it.

I don’t think most of my clients buy things mind you. No, I know, I chose to do this. I chose to work in a deprived area because I wanted to save lives. And here a life is ten a penny. These people can’t differentiate between paying for something and feeding their babies. Or their habit. I’m an uncomfortable bed partner between these people and the police. They know I have to report some things but also need to confide in me. I try to find a balance and report only what I feel I have to. I think they respect me for that.

Such a warm fuzzy feeling. I quite like this. I wish people would stop fussing though. I hate to be fussed over, haven’t I told you that already? I need my rest. A big day tomorrow. The big boss is coming down to see where his funding is going. I’m hoping to have a nice clean theatre to show him. Cathy will tidy it up. I just hope we have no emergencies until after he’s gone. Who am I kidding, there’s an emergency every ten minutes. My husband has been begging me to give up working here and go somewhere where they pay you a ridiculous amount to make their nose a better shape. Arrgh! Now that would be selling yourself out.

That reminds me of Thunder. That’s the only name I know him by. He and his brother were regulars at the hospital. You would swear they had country club passes. He tried to convince me at first that he was a passing businessman who went down the wrong street and got stabbed. I could tell by his ancient eyes that he was lying. A boy of twenty with eyes of about eighty. He’d seen it all. He said he was getting out and making it big. He’d buy a big house and then he said he was going to pay me to fix him up proper with a new face. I told him he was slowly getting a new face the old fashioned way, so don’t waste his money on it all. If he and his brother didn’t stop visiting the hospital I’d have to start giving them club card points each visit.

Is that my wincing in reflex to my thoughts or something else? I still feel sad at it all. I had never seen Thunder so, well, ‘thundery’ that day. I don’t blame him for being upset about his brother. There was so much blood his body just gave up. Of course when Thunder gave me that look that said, ‘Did you do all you could really? Did you?’ I felt like screaming at him that I had nothing to do with it all. I didn’t force them to live on the streets, to sell drugs and to get cut up every week. I was trying to save him. Just like a surgeon in a war. The soldiers get blown to bits, they’d be patched up until they could stand again, and be sent cheerily back to their doom. It was a waste of effort then and it’s a waste of effort now. Why not just give these people a gun each to blow their own brains out. Saves me a lot of time and effort.

But I shouldn’t get angry with them. I’ve never been there. I’ve never smelt the desperation from my own family who need food, warmth, comfort. Who am I but a middle class woman just trying to make a difference in the world? I feel sleepy now. I should never have worked myself up. That husband of mine would tell me to walk away from it all. Stop wasting my life on them. Talk of the devil, here he is. I feel better now. Maybe all those lights and eyes will go away now that he’s here. But why is he crying? It’s me that’s scared not him. It’s me that saw those angry eyes go straight through me, shouts of ‘get the bitch, she killed my brother’ hitting me like a brick wall. Oh yes I remember now. It was like so many people suffocating me, but it was probably only half a dozen. That’s all it takes to be cornered I guess. And it only takes one knife to inflict a wound. Hell don’t I know it. How many abdomens have I patched up in my time? How many bereaved families have I consoled, telling them I did all I could? How ironic that this time it will be my husband that hears the patter from the tired surgeon, the one that tried for hours to save the hapless stabbed victim. Well ok, maybe you were right, I ws never going to save them all. And by the way Cathy, you missed a bit. Always look up dear, always look up. I should have known I’d never keep my theatre clean until the boss finishes his visit.