The Doors to an Ambulance
Screaming sirens. Luminous lights. Turbulent tires. Such qualities were everything irrelevant to me, an eight-year old who was introvertedly enclosed to the outside world.
Little me only opened two gateways, one to my mother’s mind and the other to my father’s mind. They protected me, holding my hand for every minor inconvenience. The brightest part of my days involved walking in and out of the doors of a candy shop, happy to see my favourite milk chocolates in stock. Walking out into the busy streets, I witnessed an attention-grabbing scramble down the street. I hear the ear-blasting sirens and the fluorescent red alarm, making my favourite milk chocolate a little less appetising than usual. My face, uniformed with the nearby pedestrians, was etched with the same expressions. Scorn. Snickering. Rolling eyes.
My irritation towards the noise changed as I found myself on the other side of that door, the day I sat on the broken grey bed accompanied by a bright red first aid kit, staring at a dirty, white door that concealed me from the street that carried my milk chocolate delights.
A scattered web of muffled voices crying “It’ll be okay!” or “Hold my hand!” reigned within the barriers of the vehicle. I submissively stepped through ambulance doors as a river of blood solemnly but rapidly created a waterfall that collected at the bottom of my chin. Tissue papers stained red were forming small colonies, rushing over the ground and tabletops. The ambulance interior pulsated an antiseptic scent, with its cold metal surfaces reflecting the harsh, fluorescent red lights. The enclosure was chaotic: reassuring, clamouring voices, worried suppliers of tissues, and my mother and sister pitifully looking at me as I sat myself down on the ambulance bed. 'You’re going to be fine,” she murmured, her voice steadily anchored amidst the kaleidoscope of chaotic movements.
The unrehearsed symphony of wailing sirens slowly drowned into the distant hum of pedestrian conversation, conducting a cacophony of noises that just couldn’t be distinguished. Faces melted into a collage of indistinct features, lip movements looked like indecipherable dance movements, and words transformed into meaningless symphonies lost in the chaos. All I heard were my quivering breaths that housed feelings of uncertainty. I couldn’t see my surroundings through a blurry lens. Maybe there were tables, maybe there were diligent workers bringing me tissues, and maybe there were classmates waving at me, but my vision was confined to the scene of blood stained on the stacks of colonies formed by tissues that previously were clean and white. I don't hear anything other than the sound of my panicked breathing, not the usual sirens, car honks, and annoying pedestrians laughing on the street.
The room began moving. Bed shaking, colonies of tissues crumbling down, images of the candy shop slowly exiting the window frame. As I peered through the circular window to get a subtle glimpse of the outside world, life then felt like a series of snapshots. I watch as people step out of the doors to my favourite candy shop, favourite clothing shop, and all the used-to-be familiar doors that now looked unfamiliar at the brink of a near-death situation. Pedestrians on the street all turn their heads toward me with the same expressions, likely taken offence by the deafening sirens. Scorn. Snickering. Rolling eyes. The very expressions that were previously imprinted on my face; inside, an ambulance’s attention-grabbing alarms have never sounded so quiet, the loudness of silence defeating the cacophonous city noises. As the truck hurtled along even further, I slowly closed my blurred eyes, accepting my fate in the heart of deafening silence.
Fortunately, it was only a nosebleed.
After a few hours of utter boredom in the midst of complex doctor talk, I maturely walked out of the hospital door as my mother pitifully paid the pricey ambulance fees for my simple nosebleed. On the usual streets where I greet my favourite shops, I hear and see the familiar hustle of sirens, lights, and tires passing by and empathetically peer towards the person sitting on the stained grey bed. Looking through the circular window on the door, I no longer see a truck; instead, I see a life, the life that has been built on unique stories, feeling immense agitation on the other side of the door for a matter that’s likely more severe than a nosebleed. An ephemeral feeling of sonder prevailed.
As a pedestrian, I lost count of the sheer number of ambulances that scrambled down the street and the number of times I covered my ears, shot glances at the noisy disruption, or envisioned the delicacy of my life if the truck never existed. Only after breaking into the ambulance doors did I greet the doors to the unique experiences of others. While I immersed myself in the cacophonous chattering laughter on the street, the person gazing at me through the circular window is experiencing a totally different day.
A day of panic, pain, and unsettlingly deafening silence that will never be forgotten.