Amelia hates being around sick people. She dislikes the old, particularly old men. She didn't know that men's body hair continues to grow, on their shoulders or chests. It gets very long, and then it goes white, a grizzled mat over withered dugs. Their arms look like crepe paper. Their lips go thin, their ears fat. She didn't realize they get covered in little brown spots. She has to plug colostomy bags or feed gurgling pipes down into their bellies. Old men make her feel continually sick.
A fine time to find that out; after you've decided to become a nurse. Yesterday an old man collapsed in the toilet, and Amelia ran out to fetch the ward sister. "You can't panic like that," said the ward sister.
"It's not panic," Amelia said before she could stop herself. "He's just so...UGLY."
"This isn't a beauty contest," said the sister.
Amelia became a nurse with images in her head of healing the pathetic, the young, the sad, the handsome. Something clicks. It's young hunky soldiers she wants to heal.
She could always join the Army.