De Profundis

They say you become cynical, working nights.

They say that you get tired and worn around the edges, trying to sleep fitfully through hot summer days and the lives of everyone else, waking up for dinner, saying goodnight to your kids as you leave for work.

They say that nights are ninety percent bullshit and ten percent ohshit, and that the former makes you tired and bitter towards humanity while the latter takes years off your life and puts white in your hair.

They say, they say, and all of them are correct. (With apologies to David Drake.)

And yet ... every night you get to watch the sun rise.

And for every drunk who wants to fight, for every idiot who needs an ambulance for a tummyache at 3am, for every stupid nursing home that has to "send one out" at the end of your shift, there is a poor dumb scared kid who just wrecked dad's car and just needs their hand held. There is a sick, sick, bad sick old man who has been waiting and waiting, hoping his chest will stop hurting or his breathing will get better.

And sometimes, usually when you least expect it, there is someone who truly needs an ambulance and truly needs advanced life support; not just a ride to the ER but all the care you and your partner can give them.

And that, I suppose, makes the cynicism and trying to sleep in the light and the endless parade of big white taxi rides -- it makes all that okay.


(Welcome back, folks.)