What Time Is It?

Time, to me is a just what's on the clock. Day Time. Night Time. It matters not. I have been awake for days at a time. I just read a line, in an Ann Rice book, about working in a hospital, that the light never changes, nor the temperature, so it was "a submarine, passing through time". I really liked that concept.

I have been in an ambulance at any given moment on the clock. I have been both in the front, and in the back. A submarine passing through time. The light outside and inside changes. But time still must be documented somewhere.

As I sit here, the sun is westering and just coming into my eyes, making the dust motes dance in the room, highlighting the dust on my computer screen, and illuminating my hair and eyelashes. What time is it? I don't know. What time of year is it? Could be 1500. Could be 05:00 pm. I just don't know. I seldom care, unless someone else needs a meal by a given time and I am the one cooking.

I used to force my body to sleep at nights and be awake during the day. But my 24 hour schedule demanded something different from my body. I finally gave up. I sleep when I am tired, eat when I am hungry and zone out in front of a bad movie when the mood strikes me. My body has a 72 hour cycle to it. I have worked in some sort of three day system for too long. Rest, refreshment, relish, rejuvenate, rugged, recreate, run-down and really rowdy.

The only time I worry about what time it is, when the radio goes off, when I arrive at someone's side to respond to their needs. When I execute a protocol. When I arrive at the hospital with them. And when I am available for another call. When, if needed, I pronounce them deceased (or born) then I want to know exactly what time it is.

Otherwise, that big box is a submarine, passing through time. Long ago there was one ambulance that I had a great affinity for. I found my skill in there. It was a late 90's van conversion. Big blue ugly thing. 2676. Ran like an overloaded pick up. Screaming against the laws of physics, demanding brakes and oil and once, a motor. But I learned about my skills in it. I 'absorbed' what patients needed. I 'listened' between the words they said. I 'felt' pain with them, or 'heard' their line of complete shit.

There was once, I was accused of voodoo medicine in that ambulance. Funny story. Someday I may tell you that tale.

The sun rises and sets on its cycle, my body has its own cycle of rest and energy. Just a submarine, passing through time. Creating a wake, making waves of it's own.