Response to "Emergency" by Denis Johnson

I read this one twice, because once was not enough to grasp... everything.

I have to give credit to Denis Johnson for not glorifying thepeople who work in Emergency rooms. That was actually something that stuck withme through the entire story. These people are supposed to savelives, I kept thinking.

When I think of an emergency room, I admittedly don't really thinkabout the people who staff it. For me, it's a big white area full ofsterile equipment and cleanliness. In my mind, this space is prettymuch sacred - nothing that touches an ER contaminates it. It's like a.... I'mabout to show my biology nerd. It's like a Lysosome within a cell - waste comesin and is destroyed. People leave ER's clean, recovering.

So, of course, these two men working a late shift at theEmergency Room and having an LSD trip was disturbing.

The imagery used throughout the piece was very strong. I couldfeel the pressing darkness, feel the "baby rabbits" against my skin.This was very obviously a bad trip, and I felt every nuance of it.

I would love to write this way, showing, not telling. Generally,in my writing, I can focus on character and flesh out personalities andfeelings. I’ve grown accustomed to showing abstract concepts with concreteimages. I’d even go far enough to say that I’m rather good at it. But I’venever been great at describing the physical scene – for the most part, mycharacters float in a vacuum, reacting to stimuli that the reader is not awareof. I suppose it comes from knowing what is in my own head; I have a tendencyto assume the reader will know exactly what I mean.

TL;DR: Emergency was an acid trip, full to the brim with vivid,concrete images.