My LA short story

This is my LA short story that i have written. Hope you enjoy it^^

Isaac tried to will the vehicles in front of him to move forward so that he could reach home as fast as possible but the traffic jam would not heed his silent pleas and Isaac’s car was a still as a rock. The middle-aged man had missed five of his son’s birthday parties consecutively year after year. His colleagues and wife told him that it was not his fault, that as a doctor his son could not expect him to be there every time he was wanted. But he could not ignore the shame and sadness he felt when he arrived home and his son ignored him, so bitter was he at Isaac for not being there to support and guide him like Isaac should have done. This time though, he had promised his now twelve year old son and himself that he would definitely turn up for his son’s birthday this year.

Now, it seemed that he would be stuck at this clogged up road filled with cars for so long till when he arrived home all the guests would have left and his poor son would be in his room sleeping having cried himself to sleep from the disappointment. The row of cars started to inch forward slightly and Isaac could see the cause of all his frustration. There were two cars that had collided with each other and were lying across Serangoon’s main road in a tangled heap of scrap metal with bits of glass strewn around all over the place. Two policemen were cordoning off the site and searching the heap of metal blocking the road to find if there were any other people still inside the car wreck.

Isaac realized that he could help the injured people who had survived the initial accident but were dying due to their injuries. He clambered out of his car and squeezed his way through the cars to where the accident had occurred. As he neared the car accident Isaac saw the policemen move to prevent him from running past them. Isaac quickly explained that he was a doctor, the words spilling out of his mouth so quickly that the policemen had to ask him to repeat everything. With everything sorted out, Isaac approached the victims that were laid out a few feet away from the metal heap. The woman was peppered with tiny shards of broken glass. Those were not serious but would have to be tended to at a later time. The man however, was covered with blood, some of which had congealed to form a sickening red crust over the man’s body. Isaac quickly checked the man’s pulse by putting his thumb on the wrist. To his dismay, the pulse was faint and getting fainter as the seconds ticked by. Isaac sent a policeman running to his car to retrieve his first-aid kit.

Isaac requested for a roll of linen cloth from the returning policeman to be used as makeshift bandage for the long gash he had discovered on the man’s upper torso. By a stroke of luck, it was not too deep or the man would have long died from the loss of blood. He knew that the wound was definitely the cause of all the blood so he had to act quickly. Isaac hastily moved to bandage up the wound as tightly as possibly so as to restrict blood flow to that section of his chest. After finishing the task, he felt for a pulse again but to his dismay he found the pulse slowing down and stopping. Immediately he commenced CPR to keep the man alive. One policeman had also learned CPR and offered to help when Isaac’s arms began to tire. They would then keep rotating to allow the other to recover for a period of time.

Isaac took a break after rotating with the policeman six times sitting down on the grimy road, his arms drooping with exhaustion. When his eyes fell on the unknown man, Isaac noticed that if all the blood and dirt on the man was removed, the man would resemble him! Isaac imagined himself in the victim’s place and shuddered. What if he had been the car crash victim rather than the man he was helping? He probably would have died. His son would never have seen him again and Isaac would never attend one of his son’s birthdays. Maybe the man could have been rushing home to attend his son’s birthday as well. With that thought in Isaac’s head he continued the CPR with renewed vigor. This extra energy helped Isaac continued the tiring CPR till help arrived in the form of an ambulance and its wailing sirens weaving its way through the space the cars made for it. Two paramedics rushed out to take over and Isaac stumbled backwards and sat down hard on the ground relieved to take a break after…how long had it been? Isaac risked a glance at his watch and sighed when he saw the time. He had missed his son’s birthday, again, and would have to find some way to make it up to him so that his son would not end up openly hating him.

He went into the ambulance to wash the blood of the man and the grime of the road of his tired hands. The man was brought into the ambulance and a paramedic stood over him preparing to shock the man’s heart back to life. Isaac watched panic filling him up as he watched five unsuccessful attempts of revival. The initial anxiety faded away when the paramedic reported that he had felt a pulse. Isaac realized his pulse was racing and he let out a breath that he did not realize he had been holding. The ambulance put the woman on a stretcher and started up before attempting to squeeze through the tight car formations in an effort to reach the nearest hospital.

When the policeman and Isaac had been doing CPR, the other policeman had help Isaac move his car along so he would not block what tiny traffic flow was left. A weary but satisfied trudged back to his car and sank into the soft leather seat with a small sigh of pleasure. After squatting and doing CPR for so long, even sitting down felt like a luxury. While waiting for the jam to ease, he thought about how he would explain it to his young son that though he had been delayed and missed his son’s birthday party, he had saved a man that like him was a middle-aged man, that like him mostly likely had a son, and like him would also be rushing home on a specific day to celebrate his son’s birthday. But he was disillusioning himself. His son would not be willing to hear any explanation. All he wanted was that his father turned up at just one of his birthday parties, and this year, Isaac had not done that.