In Sheets Of Rain - Nicola Claire

Prologue

The blood wouldn’t come out, although you couldn’t see it. I could. It was still there. On my skin. On my uniform. On the soles of my shoes. Red. Thick. Permanent. No matter what I did, it was always there.

A spot seen from the very corner of my eye. A splash only visible when I walked past. A drop heard when I tried to fall asleep. A smell that never faded.

A telecommunications building in the Viaduct; it had blood. On the carpark, out the front. Black tar-seal coated in red.

A block of upmarket flats on Shore Road. Top floor. By the lift.

The Harbour Bridge, centre lane, Northbound. Oxygen masks and a fishing rod. A small child.

Blood.

There were more. Too many to mention. But when I walked past, I saw it all over again. When I fell asleep, I dreamed it all over again. When I opened my med kit, checked the saline and crepe bandages and 14 gauge needles. It was there.

Sanitarium Weet-Bix boxes. Blue and red.

Ducks and geese in a house in Belmont.

Crumpled cars. Broken bones. Burned skin. And blood. Always, always blood.

Sometimes, I was the only one to see it. The only one to feel it.

Sometimes, I felt so very, very alone.

They warned you, of course. They talked about ‘jobs’ that kept repeating. Certain injuries or ailments that made you feel sick when you got the call. Places that would always bring back memories.

I thought I could handle it. I thought I was made of stone. Invincible even.

But I am only flesh and bone. I have a heart that beats. Lungs that push through air. And a mind that can’t let go.

Singing in a church in Mangere. Such beautiful voices raised in prayer. Saying goodbye to their loved one. While we worked to start a heart that had long since stopped beating.

Upside down, the smell of spilt petrol filling my nose, the IV sliding in through clammy skin. “Get me out of here!” His words or mine, I don’t know.

Burned flesh. Bags of saline. Screeds of plastic sandwich wrap. The look in her eyes. She knew.

Sometimes, it was too much. Sometimes, I just needed to breathe different air. But where do you go to in an organisation that prides itself on staying strong? Never showing weakness. Always doing your job. No matter what. Where do you go?

I tried the call centre. It made sense. I couldn’t smell the blood in there. I couldn’t see it.

But blood talks. Blood screams. Blood moans and pleads and cries.

“Ambulance Emergency.”

“I can’t stop it. It’s everywhere. The glass just broke. His arm! Oh, God. The blood. Come quickly! Please!”

There were good memories. There were. Lives saved. People helped. Occasionally just a cup of tea put on and a cheese sandwich made.

There were good memories. But my mind chose to forget those.

An instructor once told me to make sure I stopped and smelled the roses.

But roses have thorns. And thorns cut skin.

By the time I’d reached a certain level of expertise—a level of competency that meant you should have been able to handle it all—my skin was torn to shreds. I did what was required of me. Sometimes well. Sometimes not. Sometimes the blood won. Sometimes I did.

I did what was required of me, but it got harder. The dreams got longer. And louder. And darker. Don’t get me wrong; I was good at what I did. I epitomised staying strong. Never showing weakness. Always doing my job. On the outside.

The inside was a different matter.

The medical director once asked me about a job. If I was OK. If my partner was.

I lied. Because it was expected of me. Because to admit you weren’t coping was to admit you couldn’t do the job. But I could. I was good at it. I saved lives.

We were all good at it. We were expected to be.

Covered in blood.

Days and nights blended. In Comms, out on the road, back in Comms again. Nothing worked. I tried. We all tried. Or at least, we tried the only way we knew how to.

The end was slow in coming. I didn’t see it, covered in blood as I was. But it came with a crowded house, stacks upon stacks of Weet-Bix boxes, and the failure to get an IV line in a patient who had been on his cold, rubbish-strewn floor, for seventy-two hours.

Veins collapsed. Skin brittle. Blood. Just there. But I couldn’t reach it.

Time passed. I recovered. The patient may not have, but I had to tell myself that he