I used to live in an ambulance light. It was mirrored and bright at all hours of the day: conical reflectors, housing lights of red, white and blue, spinning with delight as I told myself stories beside these eternal fires. I did not roast marshmallows or stare into the sky and wonder about my future. I slid along the chromed interior, staring into a plastic covering that gave me back murky images of myself. From afar there were noises, muffled and damp, but for the most part the sirens ushered along my thoughts like daytime TV; interlaced and similar, always similar. Light from the day was fogged and muted — light that pressed into my space with the lethargy of cellular osmosis — making mine a space of clean, quiet, forgotten space; preserved, but forgotten. Thankfully forgotten.
Lights. And Noise. And Me.
There were slammed doors that put my tongue to teeth in order to keep the jarring out of my gums. Slammed doors that made the chrome in the light seem harsh and bright. There were even moments when the silver flared up and entered my veins hardening my movements and making my smile flash like a cat's eyes spotted by a hiker's flashlight.
It was a day of many doors opened and closed, when I woke up on a veranda of a house looking at a sun rise. Oranges and yellows charging forward with plates of appetizers; partygoers bouncing and glistening off the hoods of parked cars. It was a sudden shift of space, but each beam of light fell across my lashes, the hairs on my arms blossomed and bowed.
I then began the day.