Annie’s face
emerges through the haze, aftershocks still rumbling beneath. Her expression is
peaceful, but her verdant eyes are bright. Her head turns quizzically, seeing
me in the rubble as her neck telescopes past fallen supports. Powerful LEDs ignite
from her brows, driving back the gloom.
Her dainty
ballerina’s feet pick across floor, and effortlessly she lifts the slabs that
trap me. She exposes my shattered leg, and kisses me with a wicked barb, diluting
pain with anaesthetic. I descend into airy darkness as the rescue-drone with
the dead girl’s face carries me from powdery ruins and out to salvation.
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1 comment:
I first heard of the story of Inconnue de la Seine (the unknown woman of the Seine ) when I was learning CPR using the Rescue Annie CPR dummies as a kid, and for some reason this story had really stuck with me. Somehow it progressed into this piece, in which the cast face has been used to humanise what is essentially an autonomous piece of rescue equipment.
This drabble forms somewhat of a character sketch, but it also gave me the chance to play with perceptions – the feminine, dainty and graceful figure with the disconcerting characteristics of her neck, the lights, strength and the syringe/barb. The witness to this event, our unnamed earthquake survivor’s perceptions also play a part, as the trauma that he/she has just experienced is influencing their threat perception, for example describing the needle as a “wicked barb.”
More information can be found at the ever trusty Wikipedia, under the entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Inconnue_de_la_Seine.
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