Should I Stay?

Chapter 3

Am I dead?

I actually have to ask myself this

Am I dead?

At first it seemed quite obvious to me that I am. 

That the standing-here-watching part would soon be over, and before the bright light and the live-flashing-before-me business that would send me to wherever I'm going next.

Except the paramedics are here now, along with the police and the fire department. One of the man has put a white sheet over my Dad, the fire man is zipping my Mom into what looks like a plastic bag.

I can hear the man discuss something with an other fireman, who looks like he really can't be older than eighteen. The older one explains that Mom was probably hit first and killed instantly, explaining the lack of blood.

''When your heart can't pump blood, you don't really bleed. You sleep.''

I can't think about that, my Mom sleeping. So instead I think how fitting it is that she was hit first, that she was the one to buffer us from the blown. It wasn't her choice, obviously.

But I still had that one question.

Am. I. dead!?!?

The me who is lying on the edge of the road, is surrounded by a team of men and women who are trying to wake me up, or save me, while they're plugging things in my veins with I don't know what. 

There's a paramedic with what looks like a pair of scissors walking towards me. He kneel down next to me and cuts out the top of my shirt.

Uhm, HELLO!!  I'm half naked right now!! One of my boobs is exposed!!

Embarrassed as hell, I look away.

Meanwhile the police have lit flares along the whole scene and are instruction cars in both directions to turn back. The police politely offers other routes, routes that will take the people where they need to be.

They must have places to go, the people in these cars, but a lot of them don't turn back. They climb out of their cars.

They walk as far as they can towards the scene. When they see it, some of them look away, some of them are crying. One woman is trowing up into the ferns on the side of the road. Even though they don't know who we are or what actually  happened, some of them are praying for us.

I can feel them praying.

That really makes me think I'm dead.

That, and the fact that my body seems to be completely numb. But by the look of me, my leg that the asphalt has pared down to the bone, I should be in agony. I'm not even crying either, even though something unthinkable has happened to me and my family.

I'm pounding all these things when the medic with freckles and red hair, who has been working on me, answers my question.

''She's  in a coma, a stage eight, Let's bag her immediately !'' he screams.

He and another black haired medic man snake a tube down my throat, attach a bag with a bulb to it, and start pumping. ''What's the ETA for life flight?''

''Ten minutes,'' answers the medic. ''It takes twenty minutes to get back in town though.''

''We're going to get her there in fifteen if you speed like a demon.''

I can tell what the guy is thinking. That it won't do me or them any good if they get into a crash, and I agree. But he doesn't say anything, just clenches his jaw.

They load me into the ambulance; the redhead climbs into the back next to me. He pumps my bag with one hand, adjusts my IV and my other monitors with the other. Then he smooths a lock of my hair from my forehead.

''Hang in there, love,'' he says to me. ''you have to stay strong.''