Dead Fish
Ingrid Barnes
I

I was walking home, just walking along. It was the afternoon, about five, but still broad daylight. They hadn’t even turned the street lights on yet.
The guy was crossing the road, completely reasonably. I mean, sure, it wasn’t a pedestrian crossing or whatever, but in broad daylight you’d assume that a car would slow down for you.

The car didn’t though.

It drove right on through, and there was a kind of

thump. And the car drove off, and screeched a little bit as it turned the corner. I didn’t really see what happened, I mean, it’s not like you going around watching people as they cross the road. You assume that they’re gonna be fine.

This guy wasn’t though. He was lying on the side of the road. For a few seconds, I just looked around. Surely someone else had seen this. There had to be someone else around.
But there wasn’t anyone. Just me.

II

Well, I got my mobile out right away and called triple 0. I was jogging over to this guy on the road, and looking about for a street sign because how the hell would I know what street it was, and yelling to the chick on the other end of the phone and I was still looking around for someone else. There had to someone else here, someone who could help me. It wasn’t fair, you see. I mean, I’m just a kid really. Sixteen, whatever, but I didn’t need this kind of thing.

I knelt down over the man. His eyes were closed, but one of them was kind of twitching. His mouth was hanging open and there was a smear of blood on his temple. His face was kind of grazed from the road.
He had stubble, not from one day, but from several, I would reckon. He was kind of ugly, and flabby around the jaw. I bent down to check his breathing and that,
and he smelt.

Anyway, it was kind of lucky. For him, I mean. Cos I’d just done this first aid course, like, just the week before. I can’t remember now what the hell I wanted to do something like that for, but I did, so it was pretty lucky. Otherwise, well.

I checked him. No breathing, no pulse, no nothing. So I started CPR. It was harder than I expected. I pumped his chest up and down. There was some cracking and other stuff that didn’t sound too good, but at the hospital they said to just keep going, no matter what. So I kept going. And my hands felt wet and warm

and I looked down

and shit,
they were covered in blood.
I was kneeling in the road looking down at my bloody hands and I knew that I would
never
forget that image. I would never be able to get it out of my mind. It would be just like Lady Macbeth. I’d never be able to get the blood off.

And,
fuck, it wasn’t fair.
I mean, I didn’t murder him, I was just
there.
And I was trying not to scream or throw up or pass out because I was just a kid and my hands were covered in blood.

III

I kind of snapped out of it, don’t know how. I had to do EAR then. I wouldn’t have, cos you can get all sorts of diseases from doing mouth to mouth, but of course the hospital had given us all these little mouth cover things and I had one in my bag. I kind of hated the hospital then, for giving me those little mouth covers. I mean, I didn’t want to do mouth to mouth. I knew I could save the guy’s life, but I actually didn’t want to. I mean, I didn’t even know him, and he smelled, and he wasn’t even good looking. I just wanted to go home and wash my hands.

As many times as it took.

I cleared his mouth with my bloody hand, I mean, it was his blood, so it couldn’t really do him any harm. I put the little cover over his mouth and bent over him. I felt his stubble on my cheek. His mouth was wet and warm under the cover and smelt like something had died inside it. I wanted to vomit but I didn’t, I just breathed into his mouth.

IV

The ambulance arrived a little later. They took us both inside. They like the person who is already doing the CPR to keep going, you see. I kept doing CPR and all that, right the way to the hospital. The same hospital where I did my course. I don’t really know what happened after that.

The next thing I remember was being in the nurse’s lounge. I was shivering and they’d wrapped this blanket over my shoulders. It smelled like antiseptic. Everything there did, so it wasn’t really strange or anything, but still, it was strange, because blankets are supposed to be nice and comforting, you know?

Someone had washed my hands, maybe it was me, but there was still some blood, dried now, under my nails and around the edges, in the cracks of the skin. There was a nurse there and she was telling me that because of me, that guy would probably make it. It was meant to make me feel good, I suppose.

I didn’t feel good. Or nice, or anything. I mean, in the first aid course, they made you think that saving someone’s life makes you a hero. But I knew that if that guy saw me in the street, he wouldn’t even know who I was. I didn’t even know if I’d recognise him.

V

I think I did that first aid course because I thought that it would be nice saving someone’s life.
The hospital never told us that it would be
messy
like that, with the
blood
and the
smell
and stuff.
I was meant to feel warm and fuzzy after saving someone’s life.

But I didn’t.

I just felt like I’d swallowed a cold, slimy, dead fish.
Whole.

Author’s Note: This poem is entirely fiction. I have never saved someone’s life, and I have never done CPR or EAR on a real person. So I apologise for any medical inaccuracies.