//------------------------------//
// Come home 
// Story: Come home (plus rewrite) 
// by a touch of sparkles 
//------------------------------//

Nine o’clock, that’s when shift starts, every day but the weekends. My shift was shorter than most, the boss was kind enough to give me time to take the kids to school. I look at myself in the staff bathroom mirror. Magenta skin, a little rosy pink. Light blue hair in a bun and the front hairs gripped down. I don’t care to much about my appearance anymore, but I at least make myself presentable. Nobody wants a riffy person with their life in their hands. I leave and open my locker one last time, check my phone. No calls, no texts, thank god. I hate leaving my phone here now. It could be ringing over and over. Never the general, they had other things. But it could be someone else important, maybe head of the medics. Grievous news to give. I hope it never rings. Heading out to the van with the new guy, I was never the best with names, it’s a B or something. We sit down and turn on the systems and check over the supplies in the cabinet. They sounded rickety, they weren’t, but it’s a question I’ve got used to now. It’s tied in right? Not going to fall over? Yes I say, their all clipped in.

First case comes in, the typical early shift. An elderly persons fell down the stairs. Maybe late at night and has been lying on the floor the whole night until the caretaker comes in. We drive, short distance. Not a severe emergency, no lights or sirens. We arrive. A sweet old man, nineties, his hair must have been…maybe golden once, hard to tell from the grey. Your best bet is the eyebrows, they seem to stay coloured much longer. He wasn’t hurt severely, no broken bones, no emergency. These are the nice cases to start or end the day off on. We sit down with him and his caretaker, have some tea and a little toast. The elderly just want someone to talk to, no one should leave the world feeling alone. But we can only stay for five minutes or so, once the tea and toast is gone we have to leave. But the old guy was smiling, that was worth it. The sky wasn’t smiling though, it was dark grey, rain was on its way. 

We sit in the van for only seconds before an emergency pops up. Shallow breathing and shaky, not exactly responding. We shoot off, sirens spooking the nearby drivers. Blue lights ignore the red and in about ten minutes were already at the next house. We get there, we “meet” the patient in bed. They aren’t breathing now, their heart has stopped. We inform the wife, who is a mess, who wouldn’t be. Husband looks dead in bed. Me and B begin the CPR, taking it in turns. We couldn’t become tiered. We call out for a senior paramedic, who brings a…device to do the CPR for us. My brain can remember how to save lives at the moment, it’s not worried about the name of fancy machines. We keep track of the patients pulse. We use the defib a couple times, on the second the heart starts weakly. He wasn’t stable, he was certainly low on oxygen, we whiz him off to the hospital and they take over from there. We restock at the hospital after using oxygen tanks and the like, we debrief ourselves. What we did well and what we could have done better. Somehow it was already two thirty, time for lunch, it was spitting now, that horrible type that’s thin and misty.

Bullets pelted the wall that was once a building. Multiple rounds, they knew he was here. A few whizzed over his head, shaving off the traditional war braids of his race. Dark skin was bruised and cut, trickles of silver dripped into failing Kevlar. He had to move, they would chuck something more than bullets eventually. His enemy was smart, never leaving a window open during reload. He had to risk it, but he wasn’t a small target. Near twice the size of the average human, not helped by bulky loads. That’s why they were being slaughtered, for thirty years now. They were monsters, at least that was what half of the republic thought, the other half was on their side. He dashed over to another broken wall, taking a couple bullets to the boot. But then the world flashed outside a still standing window. Snow and ice was launched along with metal and concrete. A piercing pain shot through his arm, straight through then into the flesh of his chest. He remembered, years back, the shrapnel, the slaughtering nature of it. A long screw had impaled itself into his arm, a flying dart of a screw that seems inconveniently long. It was rusted from the sheer amount of water from snow to mist. It stung and burned in the muscle. His arm was going dead from pain, he was useless if he couldn’t lift his gun, let alone a knife.

We eat at the nearby café, then we’re in the van a half hour later. We get a call, not as serious. A woman fainted and hit her head with no one else home. So she was clearly not in a severe state if she managed to call the hospital. It was a long way away though, perhaps the other ambulances had more important things to do in that area. I recognised the district name, well known for motor accidents, mostly from teens trying to look hard while playing chicken. 

We arrive at the house and find the woman was crawling around. She slurred her speech a little and was just a tad confused. She muddled up her explanations. But she had fainted from sever period cramps and hit her head on the stone floor of the kitchen. While I checked her head over for any blood or dents she gave me the idea that she could have been unconscious for a little bit. It’s like one of those naps that just happen and you can’t remember when you fell asleep she attempted to say. I was planning to take her over to the nearest hospital anyway, but that sealed it. With no one around we couldn’t guarantee if she had hit her head on anything else on the way down. We load her up and take her to the nearby hospital. Newley built, probably because of the motor accidents. We only realise after we drop her off that our shift has ended, somehow. Only three calls, I don’t even know if that’s average or not, I tend to forget precise numbers by the weekend. 

He had slumped down somewhere safe…ish. There was still a chance it would explode, or the wrong man would find him. Someone with a blue snowflake badge. But he was lucky, a soldier of the republic with a white feather badge like his. Alabaster skin, stained red, and a chard blue beard. The soldier panicked at his hazy gaze. An arm drenched in his own blood where he had pulled his arm, the spiral of the screw shredded more flesh. Being pushed around by straining muscles and foolishly half removed by prying fingers. The other soldier lifted him by the good side, lifting the giant to rest over his shoulder yet still have his feet on the ground. There was a few comforting words he couldn’t hear. Ears echoed with the bangs and booms as he tried to focus on his two feet. No he didn’t have three, one was a different colour and much smaller. Put one in front of the other.

I can’t just go home, I have to go back to the main docking station to grab my stuff. I get to my locker after another long drive where I find my phone. Still no really important texts or calls. Just one off my daughter, were at grandma’s. I took my stuff and entered my own car, same numberplate, same seats and not rickety sounding. I drive down roads at a normal pace now, reminding myself I can’t run red lights. I arrive at the bungalow. Quite a big one near the park. The two schools the kids went to were nearby, much closer to here than they were home. 

The kids only have three grandparents, only one was biologically though. I was adopted. Rabia opened the door to me, she was getting on in age now, her walking stick was propped up against the wall for longer journeys. She looked so much like him, dark skin, darker hair, red eyes and a giant. One eye was missing though, torn away in the war she escaped. I will always remember that story, one so depressing you just can’t forget it. Her, her husband, their son and the bird were caught up in the crossfire. The husband had took the shrapnel from the exploding family inn and died in their arms. There was no saving him, but they had saved his body and embalmed it so they could give him a proper funeral when they were evacuated. That had happened…what…a good thirty or so years ago. Why was this war still going. Its led to nothing.

I find the kids in the living room. Magnolia the oldest, my skin and her father’s eyes and hair. She was in sixth form, doing Chemistry, maths and history. Like most, she didn’t really know what she wanted to do. Just something chemistry. Then there was Platino, fathers size and fur, my hair. He was in early year nine, he would be choosing his options for GCSE this year. My youngest was Etéra, she was in year five, still very young. She was the same colour as her father, half her hair was blue though. her eyes were green like neither of ours. It was one of his genes, the green would grow out. She was only one here who didn’t quite understand the absence of her father, if you didn’t count Opal. The white peacock was well over thirty years old yet he seemed young still. He seemed too intelligent for what he is, to a point he has an inflated ego. He knew how pretty he was. I sit down with them, Rabia goes to get me some tea, I would get changed after. 

I fiddle with my rings. I often twisted them around my finger. I had three over the usual two. The engagement ring was gold, a chunk of sculpted rose quartz in the middle. The two other rings cupped it on either side. The wedding band was a braided pattern, two strands of tungsten and the other a rosy inlay strand. The third was called a push ring or something. He gave it to me after we had Mag’s, similar to the wedding ring, just not a braided pattern. Rabia handed me my tea as Etéra cosied up to me, Rabia gave me a forgiving look. We were both going through similar experiences. My husband may not return, her son may not return. I don’t know which would be worse. Still no messages.

He woke up slightly dazed. He could faintly remember a snow mobile, and a med bay. His arm hurt, a nurse stood over him. White skin again, pastel pink hair. He wouldn’t be on the line again, his arm needed rest, not to carry a heavy gun. Besides, there were better equipped hospitals at home. The other soldier was gone, back out on the line. But not him, he would be going home. There were a dozen others that needed to. 

I showered and changed, traditional republican cloths. They stuck out a little, but I liked them. It was odd that me and him ended up together. He was an orphan with me for some time, something went down with the plane and he was separated from his mother. He only had Opal. People liked to say we were a good example of how love conquers and stuff, as if we hadn’t had our ups and downs. I say goodbye to Rabia and get the kids in the car. The two teens were silent, especially Mags. Every time he left, I think she remembers that hospital visit, where he was getting proper surgery for a sliced open stomach. She was only five, it pains me to think that was one of her first memories. 

It had started to rain properly now. It became dark as we travelled through the traffic filled roads of the kick out hour. If I wasn’t driving I would just zone out, listen to the rain. There’s something so relaxing about the sound of just rain, especially heavy rain on the roof of the house. The red lights of the cars were staining the water like blood, a thing I had seen too much of. The sound was making me tired, we were all tired, except for Etéra, her unending childhood sugar rush hadn’t come to a jarring halt yet, she chattered away about her friends at school and the strange games they play. I remember when I used to play those games, it’s been too long. How many sets of roadworks can one road have?

We pull into our street, I blinked twice at our lights being on. Did I leave them on? Theirs a car in the drive. Maybe the neighbour has a mate round. We dart for the door, the rain was heavy. I unlock the door, we clamber in, I run out lock the car then get back in the warm house. Theirs a smell. Spicy, sweet, herby, a dish I recognise purely of smell. I hear the kids run, then laughter. I turn to the kitchen.

And he’s there.

Standing there in his typical jogging bottoms with a bandage around his arm, the other held a flannel. Smiling as his children pressed him into the doorway. I selfishly pulled him away from them, pulling him down to my lips. I finally got to kiss him for the first time in six months.