A kind of keeper of friendship, of flame, of December rush through this little horseman’s town, a way of remaining constantly late for supper and adult conversation. I quit, the hours bordering on long, the grief bordering on real, the adrenaline give way to scotch and soda, an old man’s drink for an aging adherent of do good by others, to your health. Around the curve, the shaded ess never rid of frost, and another victim, a car overturned, and hand reaching up, swaying in the breeze, like persicaria, as though stiffened by cold swamp water.
I slow, but don’t stop, no longer a firefighter, no longer an it’s my problem and for once prepare to make it home on time, to eat warm and drink before 5, and have adult conversation about reports and our neighbor’s affair, and how I just left a dying woman alone on the street, like progress and priority.
I stop and back up, not a reluctant hero, but an annoyed observer, full of contempt for intrusion and swamp grass like persicaria, and keepers of friendship and flame, sitting in warm foyers waiting for their bags.
The first aid kit still kept in my trunk feels heavier than before, like a sack of presents, making it easier to kneel alongside her with a thud and harder to believe how clearly wound contrasts with green swamp grass in the daylight, and how lonely open scalps have always seemed to me. Like a sack of presents, I re-gift words of consolation and reassurance. “You’ll be fine, stay absolutely still, an ambulance will arrive shortly.” I hold her neck and peer into diameter of pupil, and ask orientation, to person, to place, to time, to event leading up to incident. I hold her neck and think of adult conversation and missing the light that would have fallen on the last leaves of forsythia with a whiskey in one hand and unopened mail in the other; my sundial that reads only NOW or NEVER.
“Can you wiggle your fingers and toes?” are the words, but the question is, “Don’t you know you’re keeping me? Don’t you know I’ve quit?”
She moans, and though I’ve had so much blood on my clothes before, this is new blood on brand new clothes, and old time on suddenly lost time. This is guilt on top of resentment for people in need, and further evidence of the ruse my service has always been. I feel so very badly for her, for not asking for any of this, to lay pretty and despised like persicaria, recipient of re-gifted words, like used comfort passed on by a former keeper of friendship and of flame.