Friday night in the city on a dead end street. Light beams out of the ambulance’s open back doors. Inside the EMT spreads a clean white sheet on the black stretcher mattress. He hits the exhaust button on the wall, and then exits from the side doors. My masked patient steps up into the back where he lays down on the stretcher. I stand in full PPE gear, and take in a last breath of the fresh night air and then enter the compartment. I sit on the bench seat. The EMT closes the door and it is just me, the patient and COVID, under the bright fluorescent lights.
