Patient. A short story written by Victoria Battman

 The Ambulance waited patiently, calm without complaint. Funny to think of an object with no human characteristics to think and have feelings, but this object, Ambulance had more than just feelings, it had a soul. Well several souls really. All the lives lost, loved, gone all in that small box. The fast actions of the paramedics, the speed of the Ambulance dashing through the streets, racing against time and against the traffic to get to the big bright city hospital where life can be saved.

But sometimes souls don’t move forward. Sometimes they stick, stick to the last thing, the feel, see, touch. Ambulance had lots of this, lost, stuck souls, clinging to its shell. The little old man who fell in Waitrose and banged his head he never made it to the hospital he just sits in the corner, the young boy who was knocked off his bike just floats up by the lights, the woman who while out on her lunch break on a windy day was hit on the head by falling masonry from a gust of wind, she comes and goes to the Ambulance.

And what of today's emergency.Will this be another soul to add to the ever-growing collection.

The small girl, small for her age, had been ill since she was a baby. Her parents had spent the last 5 years in a whirl of hospital appointments, emergency calls, doctors, letters, MP’s, worry, surgery, worry!!! More surgery, they never had any more children, they didn’t have the time for anything, life was stressful.

But Ambulance stood patiently outside on the road next to the pavement quite still. Once you entered the Ambulance the bright lights hit you, the smell of Bleach, the smell of clean, the smell of life or was that death.

Questions being asked, notes being taken. When the family entered the Ambulance it was with sadness, with defeat. As they entered the lights flickered but no one really noticed except for the little girl, she noticed. She saw the old man sitting in the corner, he gave her a little wave. The little boy, up by the lights, he gave a whoop, someone at last to play with, but the mother held on too strong. The blankets felt tight. The little girl was comfortable in her mothers arms. She felt her father brush her face, felt something wet on her face, she knew it was tears, she knew she was going to stay after all there was a baby brother on the way, sometimes souls do move forward.