Esmee : To kill the pain

To kill the pain

It was not my line of work that made me react even though it may have been my line of work that had made her stick out like a sore thumb to me. I often wondered how people could walk past someone like her and ignore what was going on completely. How anyone with a heart or soul or children could notice a child so distressed with injuries and the blatant intention of trying to end her own life and walk on without saying a word to her. The truth is though if any of them had known what was going on inside of her, could comprehend how desperate she was or what she was about to do most of them would have stopped and tried to lend a hand, however the neon sign that I saw blinking over her head was only visible to me. The blood stain on her sleeve could have been ink, the bandage there because she had fallen over and hurt it somehow and the tablets was because she had a headache or period pains or even because her injured wrist hurt. The spirit was almost completely concealed inside a tote shopping bag. I had only seen it because I had been looking for it. In life those reasons that were considered rational and possible were the ones that always made them self’s known. If I had gone up to any other person in the shop and said, “she has cut both her wrist on purpose and she has bought spirits to help wash down the tablets she is about to buy all at the same time,” they would have thought I was the insane one. The difference was I knew that teenagers contemplated suicide and cut their own wrists because every day I went to a place where it was normalized to something silly.  Even I had begun to judge someone by the depths of their cuts, foolishly thinking that someone who used a scalpel blade and cut down to the bone was somehow in more trouble than the person who scratched the skin with a compass. The girl with the compass scratches would disagree or worse try to prove herself that she could also be “good enough”   

There was of course another reason why I knew she was in trouble and it had nothing to do with the nurse’s degree or the NHS badge I carried around in my handbag. It didn’t even have anything to do with the five years on the job experience. The main reason I saw throw her while others rationalised her was because I had once stood in front of the over the counter painkillers and tried to work out the right amount that would destroy me completely.

Without taking my eyes off of the struggling girls face for more than a second I whipped around to the wound care isle and grabbed the stuff that was needed to properly look after cuts and sores including paper stitches and swiped them through a self-service checkout before throwing them into my oversized handbag and heading over to the same isle the girl was in pretending to look at the pain killers myself. I actually had no idea what I was going to say or even if I could help at all. I wanted to intervene of course, once again not because of the nurse thing but because of who I really was. I had prayed forever when I was looking over the tablets that someone would read my mind, that they would maybe come and save me. I would have walked away if someone had cared enough to ask me to.       

“Are you all right? You look a little lost,” I asked the girl as she swore under her breath at the tablets that teased her from the display. “I’m a nurse,” I confirmed smiling as she deviated her wide eyes from the prize she was seeking and looked me up and down like I may have actually materialized out of a packet of the pain killers. I dug around in my bag and pulled out the blue NHS badge that contained my name, a very dodgy picture of me as twenty four year old and other bits of information that was needed and handed it to the girl who scrutinised the writing. “You can call the number if you want,” I suggested “Check me out.”

“It’s OK, I believe you.”

“I’m Esmee,” I smiled before glancing over the shelf of pain killers again then back to the girl. “I take it your in pain if you’re looking at these things.”       

“You could say that. I’m Kathy,” The girl said quietly before handing the badge back over to me causing the sleeve to rise up on the arm with no bandage revealing two fairly nasty gashes that oozed blood sending a line trickling down her hand which she whipped in her jeans before yanking her sleeves back down and taking a step back from me her eyes wide and scared.

I could see the cogs turning inside of her head and almost hear the rate in which her heart thumped as she searched her empty mind for an excuse to use, for something to say that could possibly explain such perfect parallel cuts on her arms. She had made her excuses before for the scars but she had had them planned all along. I had caught her off guard while broken and bleeding I was trained too and not as easily as sedated by excuses like I got scratched by the cat or fell into a bush but it was all that she had.

“It’s nothing, I mean it’s the cat, she is a vicious little thing and I had to give her some medicine, it was asking for trouble, hence the pain killers, it’s kind of sore,” Kathy mumbled looking at everything else apart from me. Her legs told her to run of course but her mind wouldn’t let her. Part of her wanted me to ask the awkward questions, for me to guess correctly so she didn’t have to make up the lies but the need for the secrecy about her stage coping skill forced the lies out somewhat against her will. She couldn’t give it up even if she wanted to and addiction made humans sly deceiving and destructive  I had seen people so caught up in there need that they still lied as they were bleeding to death, convinced that one more cut could save their souls.

“That’s one nasty cat to cause cuts like that. Did he tie razor blades to his paws or something?” I laughed gently but winced as I saw the words hit her somewhere just under her ribs making her unintentionally grab at the sore bit that my words had left with one of her arms. I hadn’t meant to hurt her but making light of a situation worked with some people, it lowered a rock solid defence and made me approachable. They would tell their secret in a joke then I could intervene. Other times it made people think I was making fun of them and then they pulled faces like she just had. Maybe next time I should have just cut the crap and punched her in the face. Great choice Esmee.

“She is a very cleaver cat,” Kathy tried to smile as she regained her composure from the attack I had just pulled on her.  She knew she had to laugh at my joke because most people would have found it funny and done exactly that. Even though it hurt her more somewhere inside she would pull herself apart and stab at open wounds to keep her secret under lock and key.

“I mean tying razor blades to her paws seems like something Luna would do. Well I should probably grab some pain killers and head off. You were going to tell me the good ones.”

“Ibuprofen is probably best for the cuts as they’re an anti-inflammatory as well which will help with any swelling. Obveously make sure you read the label carefully and don’t take too many. They are very unlikely to kill you in overdose but they will make you feel pretty crappy not to mention the pretty much continual vomiting. They are not generally suitable for Asthmatics either.”

“I’m Asthmatic!” Kathy snapped more animated then she had been the entire conversation as she throw the packets back on the display and gabbed the Paracetamol instead, the smile she could not contain spread across her face, I had given her the weapon of her destruction.

“Thanks Esmee. I am sure this will really kill the pain,” Kathy smiled as she retreated with her prize.