in which i die

The wards were busy today. I felt like a ping pong ball, bouncing around between the OR, offices, wards and treatment rooms, trying to keep my forty patients straight in a head made considerably foggier by the fact that I've fallen victim to the latest virus roaming the ship. By late morning, I was pretty sure I was going to die by lunchtime.

I needed to escape just for a minute, so I walked back to the hold (a big area at the back of the ship that doubles as a patient waiting area) to deliver a patient to the eye team. He had come in for a hernia repair, but in true two-for-one style, had made sure we knew about his eye problem too. On his way back down the gangway, we were able to get him assessed by the doctor, so everyone was happy.

As I moved to hand his chart to the eye nurse, a little brown blur detached itself from one of the waiting mamas and launched itself full-force into my legs. I realized that whoever it was was holding on for dear life, and when I looked down I realized that my little leech was none other than Perrin, a plastics patient I had taken care of a couple weeks ago. His hands were free of bandages, nothing but a stitch at the base of each thumb to show where his crooked fingers had been released, and he was obviously glad to see me.

When I knelt down, he melted into my arms, his little head resting on my shoulder. I felt a hand pull on the side of my shirt, and looked over to see the baby who had been in the bed across from Perrin, his foot wrapped in an admittedly dusty bandage. It wasn't long before that little boy's twin sister joined the crowd, and I had to sit down or else I would have toppled in an undignified heap all over the dirty floor. The babies crawled into my lap and Perrin hung from my neck and I wondered whether or not it could really get any better than that.

It did, actually. When I finally pulled myself up from the floor to go back to the mountain of work waiting for me, Perrin turned to his mama, gesturing for something that he wanted out of her bag. She smiled at me and shook her head before she gave him what he wanted.

Perrin whipped back around to face me, a piece of paper in his hand folded into the crude shape of a gun. Just like boys the world over, he squeezed one eye shut, got me in his sights, and pulled his imaginary trigger.

I paused long enough that he wasn't sure whether I was going to play along, so he shot me again a few more time for good measure. I took my time, made it dramatic and died right there on the floor of the hold with about thirty eye patients staring at me through cataract-clouded eyes. Perrin and the babies jumped back onto my prostrate body, we shared one last snuggle and then I really did go back to the wards.

Funny how my death was also the thing that made me feel just a little more alive today.