first-aid training

MACRO-EDITING
We are storytelling animals. We relive our days around the dinner table through story. We set the stage; we build suspense; we instinctively know when to shift gears; we pack in the sensory details; we build toward the inevitable conclusion. What we don't do is fret over the order of the story. We don't hit backspace. We don't overthink, and somehow everything that needs to be said gets said!

For today's prompt, let's attempt to transfer that innate storytelling ability to the page by writing a letter. Write this letter as if you were telling someone about the thing that happened to you in line at the bank (or whatever you want to talk about). How would you instinctively begin if you were telling it in person or over the phone? Let your fingers take dictation, and I bet you will manage to include every necessary component without even being conscious of it.



I got this email from Quamesha about how all the "forward-facing staff" have to get first-aid certified in case I guess someone has a heat stroke, which has happened apparently, or like falls down the stairs, which I'm always worrying is about to happen on those narrow stairs–did you know that building is from like 1870-something? It's the last one left from the original marine hospital, well plus there's a little one behind that apartment building, where they used to do laundry i think.
You know before the hospital, it was Fort Pickering and that was a fort but eventually became its own town, separate from Memphis, and it went all the way to Beale Street! And obviously before that the Chickasaw or maybe Cherokee lived there, apparently there's a dispute about it between the tribes, which is supposedly why we don't have a land acknowledgement in our history brochure, at least that's what Brooke told me and I half believe her. She used to work at Chucalissa, which would've been like a suburb compared to the land with the ceremonial mounds where the museum is now. And one time someone visited and pointed to Brooke and asked "Is she real?" aka they were asking if she was indigenous but what a weird way to do that. We gotta get our shit together. Whiteys i mean. I know i know.
So I had to do this virtual CPR training and now I feel like I need to buy first-aid kits for everyone I know. What if we have a kitchen accident! Or the ceiling falls in! I guess I am supposed to know CPR now but we don't even have a tourniquet for fucks sake how am i gonna stop any kind of "life threatening bleeding" which is the same as half a can of soda?? Yes, this much!
But the in-person part of the training got cancelled so I guess I'm still not technically certified but I did take a lot of notes and I feel like I should get credit anyway. Plus I had already decided I wasn't gonna put my mouth on that dummy.