Thanks to Sam for Beta reading this, thanks also to Monica and Sarah for their suggestions re the title.
We see a fuzzy background on a TV screen. After a few seconds a picture comes up of a dark haired, olive complexioned young man in his late twenties or early thirties, sprawled in an armchair.
"Is this thing working?" he says to a person off screen. "What? Oh yeah, right." Facing the camera, he says, "Hi, my name is Dave, and I'm a doctor...so you can call me Dr Dave." He smirks at a person off-screen. "Man, this sounds so corny."
We hear an inaudible voice. "Okay, okay," says Dave. "I'll be serious."
Putting on a relatively serious expression, he starts again. "I guess you want to know how it all started, huh? Truth is...I'm not really sure. I mean, everyone had been on edge the whole day. After what had happened the last Valentines day...well, we were all a little uneasy. But it was just an ordinary day. The usual mix of traumas and walking wounded. Nothing strange. I'd been treating this kid...can't have been more than fifteen. He...he'd been shot in a drive-by shooting. Word was, he'd been in a gang. Anyway, I had the job of explaining to his brother that he probably wasn't gonna make it through the surgery. It was pretty quite at that stage so I brought him into an exam room. Anyway, I was telling him this and he was getting kinda freaked out...and he's yelling and screaming at me, and I'm trying to calm him down, and the next thing, he's pulled out a freaking gun."
The picture changes to a red haired woman, probably late thirties or early forties. Sitting primly in the chair, she says to the camera, "Hello, my name is Kerry, and I'm Chief of Emergency Medicine at County General hospital."
We hear the sound of suppressed laughter and Kerry glares at someone off-screen, making a 'cut-throat' motion with her hand.
"I was having a fairly ordinary day," she says. "Well, as ordinary as you get in one of the busiest Emergency Rooms in Illinois. I was trying to find Dr Mal...Dave, to assist with an incoming patient. One of the nurses told me that he was talking to the brother of a patient in an exam room. I wasn't sure whether or not to disturb him or not, but the other residents were all busy, so I decided to check discreetly whether he had finished with the him."
Kerry flushes slightly as she continues, "Of course, I was wondering if he had finished, and was just trying to have a quick nap."
A voice says from off-screen. "I can't believe you thought that." But we can hear that he sounds amused rather than offended.
Kerry makes a face before continuing. "So I decided that I'd listen in on the conversation and perhaps try to discreetly signal to Dave that he was needed. There was a screen just inside the door, so I couldn't see them at first. But the brother was yelling so loudly that they couldn't hear me either. I...I looked round the screen, and I saw the gun...pointing straight at Dave."
Dave shifts uneasily in the chair. "So I'm looking at this gun, and a part of me is thinking, no way man...this can't be happening...that can't be a real gun. Another part of me is thinking, shit, this is it...he's gonna shoot me. I couldn't believe it. I mean it seemed like such a dumb way to go...shot by someone I didn't even know...had hardly spoken to."
He smiles wryly, "I'd sort of always hoped that if I did get shot, it'd be at the age of ninety and a jealous husband would have pulled the trigger...but this...man...it seemed so...so unreal. So I'm standing there and I'm trying to think, what the fu...hell do I do? Do I try and grab the gun? Talk him down? Hope he'll suddenly drop dead on the spot? I was just sort of frozen to the spot. And all I could see was the gun...pointing straight at my chest. Shit, even a blind arthritic grandmother wouldn't have been able to miss me."
He laughs, but we can tell that it's forced. "So I try and look away from the gun...see if there's anything I can grab...maybe throw at him...distract him...and I glance over at the screen...and I see a shadow there...and I'm thinking, thank God...someone's gonna rescue me...and I look down to the floor to see if I can figure out who it is...you know see if it's someone who'll be able to help...and that's when I saw the crutch, and I knew it was the Chief. And I'm thinking, no way...she's never gonna be able to take him...and if she goes for help, he'll probably hear her and shoot me...or worse...he'll shoot her ...and I try to look away, so that he won't notice what I'm staring at...and I try to reason with him so he won't panic and just pull the trigger. But he just gets madder and madder and he cocks the gun."
Dave is silent for a few seconds. "I know it only made a small sound...but it was the loudest thing I've ever heard...I knew that he was gonna pull the trigger and I'd probably be dead before I hit the floor."
Kerry bites her lip as she says, "I could see that Dave wasn't having any luck in calming the man down. And when he pointed the gun at him again...it was like time had slowed down...I could see his hand tense on the trigger...I could hear the gun being cocked...and all I could think of was the very first thing I'd been told when learning to shoot. 'Never point a gun at anything unless you want to destroy it'. I didn't stop to think...I just swung with my crutch, hoping to knock the gun away before he fired...or at least hoping to deflect his aim so that he'd hit the floor or something...I heard a crack...I heard a crack as I hit him...but he still had the gun in his hand...so I hit him again...and again until he was on the ground..." Kerry stops at this point and buries her head in her hands.
The off-screen voice asks gently, "D'you want me to stop the tape?"
Kerry rubs her eyes, "No...no, I'm fine. Anyway..." We can see her visibly pull herself together, before she continues. "I was so angry at him...I kept thinking, how dare he come into my ER...threaten my staff. I don't know what I would have done if Dave hadn't called my name."
Dave says, "So I'm standing there, wondering if I dare try and jump him...and I can see his arm muscles tense like he's gonna pull the trigger...and I can't move... It's like a bad dream where you're stuck in molasses or something. I mean, I've heard of people saying they were 'rooted to the spot', and now I know what they meant. And I'm thinking, this is it...I'm going to die...and the next thing I see the Chief lashing out with her crutch...and there's a bang...and I still can't move. Kerry's there, beating the crap out of this guy...and I can't do a thing to help her. Finally I manage to take a step," he pauses before continuing. "And that's when I realized that I'd been shot."
To be continued
Ceindreadh
"i have never understood why it is necessary to become irrational in order to prove that you care, or why it should be necessary to prove it at all"
Kerr Avon
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