My Other Truck is an Ambulance, 2004

My Other Truck is an Ambulance, 2004

The pretentious truck sat there in the driveway. Under the flashing lights, the mother stood looking down at her feet, her face soaked with tears. Meanwhile, the boy was inside of the house, on his hands and knees, with thoughts running a mile a minute through his head. Trying to contain himself, he checked the pulse of the patient. To cry would be the worst thing to do at a time like this. Standing up, the boy quickly glanced behind him. Overwhelmed by his surroundings, the boy could not believe he was in his own living room. Whenever he looked down at the patient’s face, he forgot why he was there. The girl lying on the floor, his own sister, was as cold as ice. Why did I have to answer this call, and not the others at the station? Billy was on his way out the door! “I’m sorry,” the boy told his mother as he placed the stretcher holding his five-year-old sister in the ambulance, “I should not have gone to work today.” The boy climbed into the driver’s seat. In the heat of the moment, he pulled out of the driveway and off to the hospital. Thinking of his mother’s face, and the lack of his father’s, he finally burst into tears.