"Emergency" is a story that leaves you wondering what it is that you are actually reading, Is this a story that is actually happening? Is this a flawed interpretation due to a drug induced self exploration? It is hard to tell at points, but I have to say that it was a fun read, following the misadventures of two drug users that are comical, but seems to be leading to a dark ending.
The character of the narrator is
definitely an unreliable narrator indeed.
The fact of the matter that he is a person who is an avid pill popper by
his own admission, his inability to remember what is truly going on and what he is
really witnessing makes you question the events that are happening in the
story. Although, he does sound like he
may be in better shape than his friend Georgie, but I get the feeling that was
the intention of the whole story to begin with.
The title seems like a good one just
because of the series of events that go on throughout the entire story. In their own strange little drug induced
world, they are beset upon by crisis after crisis, emergency after emergency: The stabbing of Terence Webber, the squishy
shoes, looking for pills, rabbits, snow storms, AWOL friends, and what
not. It is somewhat comical and also a
sad state of affairs to find yourself in.
Georgie is a character that seems
like he is headed to hard and fast burnout, a story of an ending that will be
just as comical as it is tragic. In my
opinion, he seems like someone who sees what he is doing with his life as
saving lives with every mishap he either creates or is a part of.
The language of this piece is a
bit more on the poetic side of things and there is nothing wrong with that in
my opinion. But it is a bit flowery for
coming from an avid drug user who loses track of when and how the events of the
story take place. I personally couldn’t
think of a better way of saying things, as I often find my own work a bit more
flowery than some might expect given what my topic may be.
On the other hand, the dialogue
of this story was captured a bit more in the realm of believable. The dialogue seemed like what it would sound
like in a casual conversation, I have been known on multiple if not excessively,
for using profanity and swearing when talking to my friends about mine or their
problems. I think that a lot of stories
lack that simple form of conversation, straight forward and honest to how we
speak.
I have to be honest on this one,
I kind of got lost in the timeline after Georgie pulled the knife from Terrence
Webber's eye. Although I kind of got the
feeling that this was meant to be that way.
I feel like that you are supposed to lose track of where you are and get
lost along with the characters in the story.
The first line of the story makes
it seem like that the narrator is either a: kind of lost, or b: just really
does not care to be specific. The last
line of the piece comes from Georgie, it seems to be that he truly believes that he is
a savior of lives, and this will lead all involved down a strange somewhat
comical and somewhat tragic path of misshapen adventures.
There are a lot of themes in this
piece about blindness and vision. Take
Georgie seeing blood when no one else can, while part of this may be due to his
passion of chewing on pill; he is in the middle of an O.R. and the chances of
there being blood on the floor are great. Perhaps Georgie always sees a bloody
room when he goes into an O.R. Then
there is the part of Terrence Webber being stabbed in the eye: He was caught
looking at something that was a considered forbidden, and when he was unable to
see it coming, his wife stabs him to punish him for it. There is also the lack of head lights on
Georgie’s truck, which results in them getting lost in a blizzard, despite the
fact that there are only a few miles from home.
And it seems, in this story, when you lose sight of something there is a
dramatic change of events concerning that something. Georgie disappears to prep Mr. Webber, and
returns having removed the knife from Mr. Webbers eye, restoring his vision. Georgie does not see the rabbit and runs it
over, but as he is cutting it open to make a meal of it, he finds the baby
rabbits inside their dead mother, thus saving them from death. However when the narrator loses track of the
baby rabbits, they die under his weight crushing them in his sleep.
Overall this story was a funny
and morbid piece as we see the happenings of the world through the eyes of a
drug user Narrator and his equally dope fiend of friend. It is poetic in its language and vivid in its imagery, however this story seems to be a classic example of what not to do in you spare time in the 1970's while working in an emergency room with your best friend who has no headlights in his truck, while working in an ER.
