I need a hobby.

It was dark outside. The wind blowing enough to cut through my sweater and make me shiver. Flashlights cut through the darkness like light-sabers and the the flashing red and blue lights of all the emergency vehicles ricocheted off all the reflective street signs and decaled emergency vehicles parked randomly in the street.

At my feet, at the head of a stream of red, thick blood eroding the soil downwards to the street, was a dead woman. Face up, fists closed, and eyes open was a dead lady. Shot, somewhere, multiple times, she laid in the mud created by the melting snow dripping of the eve of her roof. Firemen rushed here and there, Police officers taped off the block with that theatrical yellow “crime scene” tape, and detectives arrived, hurriedly, scanning the beams of their flashlights on the ground, looking for clues.

She was dead. She was shot. But where? We saw one on her shoulder, above her heart. But there had to be more. That one was not bleeding, and the river of coagulating blood was originating from her head. I knelt down, careful not to get blood or mud on my uniform, and especially my shoes. Here a dead lady rests and in the back of my head all I’m worried about is getting my shirt dirty.

My gloved hand palms her head like a basketball. As if I were giving a massage, kneading all the fatigued muscles of the head, I rummaged through the dreadlocks to try and find a hole. As if I were searching in a bin of numbered Bingo balls hoping to retrieve B-9, I poked and prodded all around her head. The blood clotted in her hair. The mud, clinged to each dread and confused my senses. What was skull, what was mud, what was blood? Where was the hole that created this river of blood?

We moved her to the ambulance and did our “paramedic” thing. We went lights and sirens to the hospital, even though we all knew it wouldn’t change the outcome. And it didn’t.

I was standing outside afterwards, the the ambulance bay. Scrubbing dried blood, vomit (I think), and who knows what of all the surfaces she may have encountered. Trash littered the floor of the ambulance. Bags, catheters, wrappers, bandages, stuck to the wet surface of the ambulance floor like a collage created by a kindergartner. Police slowly arrived, one after another. Some in blue uniforms with guns pasted to their hips. Some, in unmarked cars and in suits 5 years out of style. Their guns lazily “hidden” on their belts beneath their blazers. Clipboard in hand.

That’s when it dawned on me. I’ve thought of it before, but never really realized how important it was.

I need a hobby.

I take that stuff home with me. And, unfortunately, my better half sometimes becomes the outlet. Ever wonder why police, fire, doctors, and paramedics have such a high divorce rate? It’s because, and even though everyone denies it, this stuff gets to you. You’re not suppose to “watch your step” because you may be stepping on brain. People can’t look into the empty, soulless eyes of another human after some unfortunate, violent crime and not be affected. It’s not healthy to pick something up, look at it, and wonder if it’s brain or not. That just doesn’t disappear.

So, I need a hobby. Something where I can listen to some music, sit in a chair, and repetitively and mindlessly accomplish small, and insignificant goals. Something that I can look forward to. Something where I can sit in the ambulance and daydream endlessly about. Something, besides alcohol, that will take my mind off the brain, blood, violence, anger, sad stories, homelessness, randomness and unkindness of this world.

And that something. I found.