As I stand in the young couple’s tiny but well-kept apartment, I can’t help but ask myself two questions. “Who’s fucking call is this?”  And, maybe more importantly, “Why?”. Both  keep looping around in my head like a bad seventies porno soundtrack.

‘Cause you see, the young female half of this couple is lying spread eagle and unconscious on her living room floor, shirt ripped open and eyes rolled back in her head while four paramedics work valiantly and desperately to keep her alive. Her male partner walks in small confused circles, holding his head with both hands while making feeble child like noises. Tears pour from painfully clinched eyes. I can’t read minds, but I’d bet a paycheck that “This can’t be happening!!” is set to repeat in there.

Over his shoulder, through a window, and outside shines a sign of hope. Twinkling Christmas lights dash up and down several metal fire escapes across the street. They’re beautiful, like a dazzling stairway to Heaven.

Three rookie police officers stand diligent but useless next to a fake little Christmas tree, it too alight with hope. Two of the cops stare outright, because of the girl’s whithering life signs or nakedness I don’t know. The third just looks away.

The paramedics have to rotate every minute or so. CPR looks effortless and heroic on TV. It’s actually exhausting and frustrating. Everyone is sweating. From exertion. From tension. From a growing sense of dread and death as we watch a human being slide from existence.

But it isn’t the sight of someone dying right before my eyes or even the chilling notion that death is inevitable that burns those two questions into my skull. It isn’t the anguish on everyones face or the pitiful sounds coming from the poor guy’s throat or the sadness of the whole situation.

It’s the timing that pisses me off.

‘Cause you see, just five minutes before our arrival into this nice young couple’s private world, the guy had gotten down on one knee and right there, under that tiny little Charlie Brown Christmas tree, had asked the girl to marry him.

Turns out she’s asthmatic. Seconds after saying yes to a loving man and a wonderful future she had an attack. Right there. In front of her Christmas tree and the man she wanted to spend forever .

So as we lift her onto the gurney and strap her in, as I take my turn at CPR while she’s carried to the ambulance, and as the young man begs his fiance to stay with him and not leave, I gotta ask.

Who the hell’s call was this? And why does shit like this even happen?