Warning

“I hate Christmas.” I said, slamming my locker shut as I got out my stethoscope and placed it around my neck. Mark looked at me with a skeptical expression.

“Why can’t you be normal for once and not all dark and damaged?” he asked with one of his lopsided grins. I stared back at him and got off the bench, adjusting my blue scrubs.

“Why does everybody keep saying that? I’m not damaged. I’m fine.”

“Dude, your mom is psychotic and your ex-boyfriend keeps dumping you. And you got left at the alter and got in a car accident and lost a baby. You’re dark and damaged. “

“Well then that’s why I can’t be normal.” I quipped back as Novikova walked into the lockerroom.

“Lauder, Anderson, thank you for volunteering. It saved me the trouble of having to pick volunteers. You’re in the pit today.” She looked back at us with a smile on her face, a rare occurrence. “I like Christmas. Day people spend with their families. Too much family time triggers depression, repressed childhood memories, bitter disputes over remotes and way too much alcohol. People get stupid. People get violent. People get hurt.”

Mark and I looked back at her with strange looks. “And that’s good because…?” he asked and she smiled even brighter.

“Surgeries, Lauder. Lots of surgeries. The stupidity of the human race is something to really appreciate.”

Mark and I smiled at one another, shaking our heads as she moved out of the room. We made our way to the pit, grabbing our yellow trauma gowns and gloves, getting ready. Mark tied my gown and I tied his and we pushed through the glass door.

The pit was crawling with injuries, bleeding people all clutching something and looking generally mangled.

“Christmas carnage.” I heard myself say with a smile. “This is like candy—but with blood.” I said to Mark as he snapped on his gloves.

“Which is so much better.” He replied and we split off.

I picked a younger looking guy, mid-20’s with a deep laceration in his arm that was bleeding profusely. With my luck, it would be infected and require surgery. Or it would lose feeling and need repair or—

I glanced over at Mark who was wheeling a patient up to the OR floor. She had a fork lodged in her head.

I swabbed the guys arm with iodine, touching the wound gingerly with my gloved hand.

“How did this happen again?” I asked, focusing on the injury. He just shrugged.

“My mom tried to get me to put a motherfucking star on the top of the tree and our cat jumped up there and made me lose my balance. Fell on the tree and cut my arm on the goddamn star. It’s cursed, I really think it’s a cursed star.” He said, shaking his head in disbelief.

I swabbed glitter out of his cut, grabbing another swab and my suture kit. “Cursed?” I asked, a little skeptical. He nodded, convinced it was fate.

“Last year my uncle Bill was walking around the tree and tripped over its cord and had to be taken to the ER. The year before that it blew out and I got electrocuted touching it. And the year before that, my dad got stabbed in the leg by that thing and wouldn’t stop bleeding. It’s cursed or haunted or something—are you almost done, this kind of hurts.” He said as I thread the suture through.

“No, this is a deep cut. It’ll take time if you don’t want a scar. Where else do you have to be? Family time isn’t painful enough yet?” I asked with a smile and he shook his head.

“You’re right. But the hospital isn’t exactly the place you want to be on Christmas.” He replied and I nodded. Unless you’re me, then it’s the best place on earth.

I sewed him up and gave him pain killers, walking up to Lauder who’s fork in the head turned out to be superficial and nothing more. I suppose it was dark and twisty and a damaged way to spend the holidays, but we were happy in our own way. We weren’t whole and I knew it, but I was doing my job. I had a purpose here and it satisfied me.

“So what happened with the fork?” I asked with a smile as I charted the laceration guy’s injury. Lauder brought up his own chart and started marking things off.

“Stupidity of the human race, Anderson.” He replied with a grin as Novikova swept through. She came to the both of us with a tired, weary expression. Her Christmas carnage smile had long since faded.

“We’ve got a severe trauma coming in, I don’t know the details. Paramedic said VIP patient so I need you to call down to the ICU waiting room and clear it out, make sure it stays open so they can get in and not be harassed. “ she said, the last part an instruction to the ER nurse at the station. She pointed at the two of us. “I need you to go meet the ambulance, Anderson you’ll bring the patient into the pit and do damage control and assessment here and get an attending consult or consults. I don’t know what the problem is, but I would page Hansan and Savard. Lauder, you make sure to escort them into the waiting room and make sure they’re updated every second. This is serious, people. Lets move.” She said and tied her own yellow trauma gown as we walked outside to meet the ambulance.

The ambulance rolled up quickly and the doors flew open, Stan the paramedic climbing out. Before pulling out a stretcher, revealing a crying baby strapped down to the gurney.

“Severe trauma to abdomen and head, obvious lacerations and loss of blood. Base ordered morphine, only a half migs given so far. BP holding steady at 90 over palp.” He said and I moved the stretcher into the hospital, turning around to look back just in time to see Pascal Dupuis and Sidney Crosby climb out of the ambulance.