brigits_flame = Scratch
If your injury involves any of the following, contact a doctor:
The cut is deep.
The cut is long. Long cuts are considered to be approximately 1 inch when on the hand or foot and 2 inches when elsewhere on the body.
The cut is jagged.
The injury involved a pet, especially a cat.
The injury involved a wild animal.
The injury is due to a bite, either human or animal.
The injury is a puncture wound.
-How to Give First Aid to Cuts, Scrapes and Scratches
A Battle Story
Cristina leans forward with a cotton ball loaded with bactine. Gently, she holds my arm at the wrist in her free hand. Her eyes are focused on the task at hand, on the seemingly-hundreds of little wounds covering my skin.
She says to me, “Hold still. This is gonna sting a bit.”
The bactine does more than sting. When she puts it to my left arm, it incites a shouting riot. All of the little wounds react together. Pain! This hurts! Take it off! She might as well have put fire there instead. It does the same job of protecting the wound from infection--not that I need to worry about infection, exactly. I haven’t had to worry about infection since 1926!
“Fy faen! That’s awful.”
“Yeah? Well, so are all these scratches. Jesus…” Cristina pushes her glasses back up her nose. She is, unlike other American girls I’ve met, decent at administering first aid to careless old men like me. Not as decent as her friend Sally, she protests, but decent enough. “Where the hell did you get all of these? And your neck, too? Good God…”
“Mr. 170 would chide you for that,” I tell her.
“For what?” Her eyes question me, dark like coffee. They always seem to ask questions, even when she doesn’t. “For swearing?”
“Using the Lord’s name in vain.”
“He probably wouldn’t like Ean much, then.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask her. If I talk, it makes it easier to forget the cotton ball of bactine she runs over my arm.
“Because, Conradas--” Cristina pushes her glasses up again. “--it’s practically his trademark to say ‘holy Christ’ when he’s exasperated or shocked. And Ean doesn’t shock as often as he gets exasperated with the human tendency towards stupidity.”
I find myself chuckling at this a moment before nearly jumping out of her dining room chair. My nurse for the evening laughs a little. She picks up a paper towel to dry off the excess.
“Is it really that bad? I took bullets out of your back with less squirming.”
“But when you were digging them out, I was barely conscious.”
She gives me a look that suggests I have a point before drawing out a roll of gauze from a metal lunchbox on the table. When she brought it out earlier, Batman stared at me challengingly, as if he knew and was unamused--no, unimpressed!--with where the wounds came from.
“So where did these come from?”
“Hm?”
“These cuts.” Cristina starts near my elbow and works her way to my wrist. “They’re mostly shallow, but there’re a lot of them. Did you get into a fight or something?”
A fight! Yes, that’s a good explanation, isn’t it? And not a complete lie…
“You could say that.”
She stops to push up her glasses and pull up the sleeves of her jacket. “Yeah?”
“More or less…a fight. Yes.”
“More or less.” Cristina smiles, securing the gauze in place. “Other arm, please!”
She hums a little while she washes my other arm with a wet washcloth. I don’t recognize the song even though it feels like I should. Her fingers are gentle, her hands a little rough, but that is okay. Mine are rough, too. A hard life. Hard work. I don’t know much about the hardness her life, but I see how much she does with her hands--propelling herself, transferring herself from her wheelchair into bed, creating things--and I can guess at some things or other things. I can make loose assumptions.
“So many scratches…” She clicks the tip of her tongue, sighing. “Were you tossed out of a window?”
Aha! Another opening!
“Perhaps…”
“Do you not remember?”
“It was quite a fight.”
“I’ll bet.” I watch Cristina prepare the cotton ball and brace myself. “You ready? It’s gonna sting again…”
This time, it isn’t as bad. Maybe she put less. She is working a bit more gently than before… Does she feel bad for me? Guilty? I clear my throat.
“You didn’t have to do this for me.”
She doesn’t even look up. “Why come all this way if you didn’t want me to?”
“Well, I just mean… I didn’t come all this way just for first aid! Don’t think that. I wanted to see you, too. It’s been ages!” I insist. “I could have done all of this myself, too, if I wanted.”
“But you didn’t.” Cristina smiles a little. “You like being tended to sometimes.”
“Hmph.”
“And that’s okay, y’know. Being tended to can be nice sometimes.”
“Hmph!” I rest my chin on my hand and remember my left arm hurts.
“Silly old man…” Cristina shakes her head. “So who won?”
“Hva?”
“The fight, silly. Who won?”
“O-oh. Oh. They did.”
“They? Was it a gang of them?” ‘Round and around, she wraps the gauze, stopping just to push up her glasses or pull up her sleeves.
“N-no. No. It was just one--a boy--a-a man, I mean. Male. About my age, maybe older, but you can’t tell over there, nei? Shorter than me, but the power and speed he had was…” I scrounge around for the word. “Impressive.”
“Impressive.” Cristina nods slowly, unwrapping the gauze around my arm a little to straighten it before continuing.
“And he had--it was like his nails were made of--of iron!” I tell her. “He had filed them into sharp points, like daggers!”
“A set of fingernails did all this?”
“It was lucky for me he didn’t tear out my throat!”
“Yeah, no shit. I don’t know how to first aid something like that…” She puts the gauze away. “Okay. Most of your face and neck wounds don’t look too bad. At the most, they probably just need some cleaning and a little bit of bactine, just to be safe--”
“Little Red, do you realize the redundancy of using an antiseptic on my wounds?”
“You still have other types of infections that get into the blood! Silver reactivity--”
“Which only affects the Wolfmen--”
“Hellforge poisoning--”
“For those who are allergic.”
“It never hurts to be careful!” Cristina insists. “And I’m still new at this proper first aid thing. I need practice.”
“Practice,” I repeat.
“Yes.” She picks up the washcloth. “Now hold still. Some of the ones on your neck are still bleeding a little.”
“Why don’t you practice on your boyfriend, hm?” I smile a little. “Play doctor?”
She looks unamused. My Little Red--so named because when I met her, she had hair like a fire engine--actually looks a little offended.
“Too many bad memories in him for that; too many childhood ones for me.”
Fy faen! What a brilliant man you are, Marcello Conradas! I clear my throat again.
“I’m sorry. That was--that was inappropriate of me. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay.”
“It was rude. And you’re taking care of me! I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t offend me, Conradas. It’s okay.” Cristina smiles up at me, meaning it. “It’s all good.”
“All the same…” I sigh. “Do you want to know how I really wound up like this?”
She narrows her eyes. “You mean it wasn’t a fight?”
“Oh, it was a fight--” I sigh again, frowning. “It was with my cat!”
Her eyes grow quickly. “B--Bast did all this to you?”
“Oh--worse, usually! Twice a month I try to bathe him, because he wanders around Dis all the time, and the Kjellar can get to be a pretty dirty place, too. But Bast, he--he doesn’t like the baths! I know most cats don’t, but most cats--ha! Well, they’re not my little Bastard, that’s for sure!”
“And he…did all of this?”
I can see her trying to square it in her mind, how a cat as small and as skinny as Bast could leave a grown man like me nearly cut to ribbons--and worse, on some occasions! That cat is old and stronger than he looks, I swear it! There’s a reason there aren’t any rats left within my area in Dis, but thin as he looks, nobody wants to believe it. And certainly, nobody wants to believe that a grown man like myself, renowned for tossing men twice my size out of my Kjellar, could be clawed out of his own bathroom by a little cat!
I feel her press a kiss to my uninjured cheek and wonder what it means. Cristina smiles at me. Maybe she was already smiling at me and I couldn’t see it. She reaches for the bactine and a cotton ball.
“So the guy had fingernails like daggers, huh?”
“Hva?”
“The man you got in a fight with, silly. The one who very clearly kicked your ass tonight and threw you through a glass window or door.” She unscrews the cap. “You said he had fingernails sharpened down like daggers.”
Aha. I get it now.
“Yes! Yes, like dagger points! And he had these strange eyes, like--like the Devil himself, Little Red! He had maybe the strength of ten--no, a hundred men!”
“Well, it’s a good thing all you got were these scratches and cuts,” she says, squeezing a dollop onto the little ball.
“It is…” I nod slowly, tilting my head to offer access to my throat. “It certainly is…”
Cristina leans forward with a cotton ball loaded with bactine. Her eyes and mind are focused on the task at hand, on the seemingly-hundreds of little wounds covering my skin.
She says to me, “Hold still. This is gonna sting a bit.”
The cut is deep.
The cut is long. Long cuts are considered to be approximately 1 inch when on the hand or foot and 2 inches when elsewhere on the body.
The cut is jagged.
The injury involved a pet, especially a cat.
The injury involved a wild animal.
The injury is due to a bite, either human or animal.
The injury is a puncture wound.
-How to Give First Aid to Cuts, Scrapes and Scratches
A Battle Story
Cristina leans forward with a cotton ball loaded with bactine. Gently, she holds my arm at the wrist in her free hand. Her eyes are focused on the task at hand, on the seemingly-hundreds of little wounds covering my skin.
She says to me, “Hold still. This is gonna sting a bit.”
The bactine does more than sting. When she puts it to my left arm, it incites a shouting riot. All of the little wounds react together. Pain! This hurts! Take it off! She might as well have put fire there instead. It does the same job of protecting the wound from infection--not that I need to worry about infection, exactly. I haven’t had to worry about infection since 1926!
“Fy faen! That’s awful.”
“Yeah? Well, so are all these scratches. Jesus…” Cristina pushes her glasses back up her nose. She is, unlike other American girls I’ve met, decent at administering first aid to careless old men like me. Not as decent as her friend Sally, she protests, but decent enough. “Where the hell did you get all of these? And your neck, too? Good God…”
“Mr. 170 would chide you for that,” I tell her.
“For what?” Her eyes question me, dark like coffee. They always seem to ask questions, even when she doesn’t. “For swearing?”
“Using the Lord’s name in vain.”
“He probably wouldn’t like Ean much, then.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask her. If I talk, it makes it easier to forget the cotton ball of bactine she runs over my arm.
“Because, Conradas--” Cristina pushes her glasses up again. “--it’s practically his trademark to say ‘holy Christ’ when he’s exasperated or shocked. And Ean doesn’t shock as often as he gets exasperated with the human tendency towards stupidity.”
I find myself chuckling at this a moment before nearly jumping out of her dining room chair. My nurse for the evening laughs a little. She picks up a paper towel to dry off the excess.
“Is it really that bad? I took bullets out of your back with less squirming.”
“But when you were digging them out, I was barely conscious.”
She gives me a look that suggests I have a point before drawing out a roll of gauze from a metal lunchbox on the table. When she brought it out earlier, Batman stared at me challengingly, as if he knew and was unamused--no, unimpressed!--with where the wounds came from.
“So where did these come from?”
“Hm?”
“These cuts.” Cristina starts near my elbow and works her way to my wrist. “They’re mostly shallow, but there’re a lot of them. Did you get into a fight or something?”
A fight! Yes, that’s a good explanation, isn’t it? And not a complete lie…
“You could say that.”
She stops to push up her glasses and pull up the sleeves of her jacket. “Yeah?”
“More or less…a fight. Yes.”
“More or less.” Cristina smiles, securing the gauze in place. “Other arm, please!”
She hums a little while she washes my other arm with a wet washcloth. I don’t recognize the song even though it feels like I should. Her fingers are gentle, her hands a little rough, but that is okay. Mine are rough, too. A hard life. Hard work. I don’t know much about the hardness her life, but I see how much she does with her hands--propelling herself, transferring herself from her wheelchair into bed, creating things--and I can guess at some things or other things. I can make loose assumptions.
“So many scratches…” She clicks the tip of her tongue, sighing. “Were you tossed out of a window?”
Aha! Another opening!
“Perhaps…”
“Do you not remember?”
“It was quite a fight.”
“I’ll bet.” I watch Cristina prepare the cotton ball and brace myself. “You ready? It’s gonna sting again…”
This time, it isn’t as bad. Maybe she put less. She is working a bit more gently than before… Does she feel bad for me? Guilty? I clear my throat.
“You didn’t have to do this for me.”
She doesn’t even look up. “Why come all this way if you didn’t want me to?”
“Well, I just mean… I didn’t come all this way just for first aid! Don’t think that. I wanted to see you, too. It’s been ages!” I insist. “I could have done all of this myself, too, if I wanted.”
“But you didn’t.” Cristina smiles a little. “You like being tended to sometimes.”
“Hmph.”
“And that’s okay, y’know. Being tended to can be nice sometimes.”
“Hmph!” I rest my chin on my hand and remember my left arm hurts.
“Silly old man…” Cristina shakes her head. “So who won?”
“Hva?”
“The fight, silly. Who won?”
“O-oh. Oh. They did.”
“They? Was it a gang of them?” ‘Round and around, she wraps the gauze, stopping just to push up her glasses or pull up her sleeves.
“N-no. No. It was just one--a boy--a-a man, I mean. Male. About my age, maybe older, but you can’t tell over there, nei? Shorter than me, but the power and speed he had was…” I scrounge around for the word. “Impressive.”
“Impressive.” Cristina nods slowly, unwrapping the gauze around my arm a little to straighten it before continuing.
“And he had--it was like his nails were made of--of iron!” I tell her. “He had filed them into sharp points, like daggers!”
“A set of fingernails did all this?”
“It was lucky for me he didn’t tear out my throat!”
“Yeah, no shit. I don’t know how to first aid something like that…” She puts the gauze away. “Okay. Most of your face and neck wounds don’t look too bad. At the most, they probably just need some cleaning and a little bit of bactine, just to be safe--”
“Little Red, do you realize the redundancy of using an antiseptic on my wounds?”
“You still have other types of infections that get into the blood! Silver reactivity--”
“Which only affects the Wolfmen--”
“Hellforge poisoning--”
“For those who are allergic.”
“It never hurts to be careful!” Cristina insists. “And I’m still new at this proper first aid thing. I need practice.”
“Practice,” I repeat.
“Yes.” She picks up the washcloth. “Now hold still. Some of the ones on your neck are still bleeding a little.”
“Why don’t you practice on your boyfriend, hm?” I smile a little. “Play doctor?”
She looks unamused. My Little Red--so named because when I met her, she had hair like a fire engine--actually looks a little offended.
“Too many bad memories in him for that; too many childhood ones for me.”
Fy faen! What a brilliant man you are, Marcello Conradas! I clear my throat again.
“I’m sorry. That was--that was inappropriate of me. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay.”
“It was rude. And you’re taking care of me! I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t offend me, Conradas. It’s okay.” Cristina smiles up at me, meaning it. “It’s all good.”
“All the same…” I sigh. “Do you want to know how I really wound up like this?”
She narrows her eyes. “You mean it wasn’t a fight?”
“Oh, it was a fight--” I sigh again, frowning. “It was with my cat!”
Her eyes grow quickly. “B--Bast did all this to you?”
“Oh--worse, usually! Twice a month I try to bathe him, because he wanders around Dis all the time, and the Kjellar can get to be a pretty dirty place, too. But Bast, he--he doesn’t like the baths! I know most cats don’t, but most cats--ha! Well, they’re not my little Bastard, that’s for sure!”
“And he…did all of this?”
I can see her trying to square it in her mind, how a cat as small and as skinny as Bast could leave a grown man like me nearly cut to ribbons--and worse, on some occasions! That cat is old and stronger than he looks, I swear it! There’s a reason there aren’t any rats left within my area in Dis, but thin as he looks, nobody wants to believe it. And certainly, nobody wants to believe that a grown man like myself, renowned for tossing men twice my size out of my Kjellar, could be clawed out of his own bathroom by a little cat!
I feel her press a kiss to my uninjured cheek and wonder what it means. Cristina smiles at me. Maybe she was already smiling at me and I couldn’t see it. She reaches for the bactine and a cotton ball.
“So the guy had fingernails like daggers, huh?”
“Hva?”
“The man you got in a fight with, silly. The one who very clearly kicked your ass tonight and threw you through a glass window or door.” She unscrews the cap. “You said he had fingernails sharpened down like daggers.”
Aha. I get it now.
“Yes! Yes, like dagger points! And he had these strange eyes, like--like the Devil himself, Little Red! He had maybe the strength of ten--no, a hundred men!”
“Well, it’s a good thing all you got were these scratches and cuts,” she says, squeezing a dollop onto the little ball.
“It is…” I nod slowly, tilting my head to offer access to my throat. “It certainly is…”
Cristina leans forward with a cotton ball loaded with bactine. Her eyes and mind are focused on the task at hand, on the seemingly-hundreds of little wounds covering my skin.
She says to me, “Hold still. This is gonna sting a bit.”