Pale faced maidens and heroic paramedics? Not everything in this world is what it seems... |
You can learn a lot about anatomy in a hundred years, particularly if you can’t die. Take this girl in front of me for example. I know her liver’s failing and the swift end she’d hoped for when she hit mama’s medicine cabinet late last night will be anything but. Drugs are a curiosity to me, they always have been. Like liquor to a muslim or sex to a catholic priest. They have no effect on me, not that I need them, but what I’d give for a shot. The ordinary peeps in the world, use them for everything, from drowning out junior’s teething cries to writing angsty teenage wails of rebellion with gritty lyrics and dis-chordant guitars and of course they use them to escape. Like I said, this young lady, all cobweb tattoos and the soot-smeared eyes. Seems like she knew all the words. She ain’t going to make it, she might have another night, if another paramedic had got here first, but not tonight, not on my watch. No she’ll die on the gurney and no one will blink when I roll her into the morgue a little paler than she is already. Junkie, self-harmers, losers, suicides, that’s what you call them. I call them free range. (Authors note: I'm from the UK and I'm not sure how the term Free Range translates to US English. In the UK the terms applies to meat which has been farm reared in an ethical way (eg. Chickens that have room to roam and roost) If there is a different term in the US could someone please mail me an let me know as its the whole point of the whole story, thanks.) |