Ambulance

Dear Diary,

I just finished sitting with a lot of my old photos, trying to get some order into them. Well, no, I wasn’t sitting on the floor with albums strewn all around and getting a bad back – I was sitting at the computer giving myself a stiff neck. Such is progress, and unless you’re into kundalini you’ll agree the neck is closer to the seat of the mind than the lower back. We humans are getting more mental all the time.

Well, one of the photos I came across was of an ambulance in Mumbai. I’ve always been a bit fascinated by ambulances. I suppose that’s part of our general human fascination with tragedy and disaster. Where does that come from? One part may simply be plain old human curiosity, which is most powerful when it comes to our fellow human beings – we want to know, need to know, how other people are faring. But bad news seems to draw us far more strongly than good news. I mean, I couldn’t care less what Paris Hilton eats or wears or designs or who she thinks she’s in love with (though admittedly a surprisingly large number of people do seem to care), but if there’s a headline saying Paris is being frogmarched to the slammer for drunken driving, I’m sure to read the whole news item. And proper tragedy – aren’t we all attracted to it like flies? Maybe deep inside, when we see something terrible that’s befallen someone else, we can’t help feeling glad that it wasn’t us. Maybe, even deeper down inside, we’re giving ourselves a pat on the back: well pal, there’s one more thing you managed to stay out of. I’ve seen it repeatedly – except for its victims, tragedy seems to generate a strange energy, a kind of excitement even. Perhaps that’s just biology’s way of priming us for action when there’s danger in the air. Who knows?

Oh yes, the ambulance in the photo, that’s what I meant to be telling you about. I must admit I can’t help trying to sneak a look inside whenever an ambulance passes me. What’s happening in there? Are those people on the long seats on the side concerned relations or friends, or politely professional medical staff? Is it very bad? Was someone crying there? Will they make it in time? Does the patient know what’s going on, maybe making brave jokes with the people around? And if the patient is conscious, then is that siren a good idea? I’ve always wondered, dear D – you know, if you’re lying there with a heart attack maybe, how does that wailing siren affect you? Are you lying there thinking Oh man, if they’re using that siren they must be in a terrible rush, this must be really bad, does that mean it could be all over for me any moment now? Such thoughts can’t be good when you’ve had a heart attack, they say you should keep calm. Or is the sound of that siren comforting, you’re thinking well, they’re certainly doing the best they can to get me to hospital as fast as possible. I’m in good hands, and if we don’t make it in time, at least I can’t say they didn’t try.

Well, it’s debatable whether a siren is good or not so good for a patient in an ambulance. I suppose their first concern is just to get the patient there as fast as they can, and to hell with finer feelings. But this ambulance in the photo – I think they were really carrying it a bit far. Near the top it says AMBULANCE, and lower down on the doors, right at stretcher eye level, it says M/s Penzy Morgan on one side and UNDERTAKER on the other. I mean, all right, this might save everyone a lot of trouble if the whole thing doesn’t work out, just drive straight on from the hospital to the embalmers, no distressing phone calls to make to the undertaker, no haggling over the rates, no waiting for the hearse to get through the traffic to the hospital, and maybe you get an ambulance plus hearse package deal that works out cheaper than if you had to hire them separately, but… I don’t know, I think they should be doing this a little more discreetly, just a little bit of concern for the patient’s feelings might not be out of place here.

One thing I do know for sure: if I'm being carried into an ambulance, I shall not want to see the word Undertaker in large blue letters flashing by me. I’d prefer to know that I was going for a ride in an ambulance and not a hearse. And no, not even ambulance-cum-hearse for me, thank you. I only hope someone reads this diary before they have to call me an ambulance.