Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: PATIENT (11/25/21)
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TITLE: Rehearsal | Previous Challenge Entry
By LINDA GERMAIN
12/02/21 -
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Big, printed cards were fastened with string and hung around each neck with a scripted age, diagnosis, and other pertinent information visible for the official triage team. Someone with a clipboard instructed us to play our parts well, even to moan in pretend pain.
I was late getting to the pick-up line for my assigned injury. Just as I was reading the card, an orderly rushed up with a gurney.
“Okay. Hop on.”
After realizing what was supposed to be wrong with me, I felt compelled to milk the comedic moment.
“I hope you don’t say this to all your D.O.A. patients!”
After he covered me from head to toe with a sheet, he took off so fast I nearly became airborne. That would have generated a whole new set of problems for both of us. I wondered if I was allowed to hold on to the side rails but decided that wouldn’t be very realistic. As he zipped down too many halls to count, he mumbled to me in a conspiratorial tone.
“So sorry, but I’m supposed to take you to the actual morgue in the basement.”
I was quick to whisper back from under my temporary shroud.
“Whoa! You aren’t going to deliver me to the other side of the door, are you?”
He laughed in a monster movie kind of voice that wasn’t very scary.
“Don’t worry, kid, you’ll be parked in the hall under the sign until I come back with another customer.”
When my wild ride was over, I whispered louder while hoping there were no regular citizens around with good hearing and bad hearts.
“Wait! How long do I have to stay here?”
“Just take a nap or something. You can go as soon as someone confirms your disposition.”
“My disposition is just fine, thank you!” He had already gone.
It was deathly quiet in the depths of the hospital basement. That’s usually where you’ll find the laundry, radiology, and of course, a place to put the recent dearly departed until somber-looking vehicles show up to transport them to a mortuary.
I tried to stay statue-still but my thoughts raced in every direction.
This strange situation could turn out to teach me something.
I wasn’t quite sure if it would be about empathy for those who had passed and were shuttled unceremoniously to a holding spot, or if it was to consider my own mortality. I see now that it was both.
Tired from a long day of working hard to perfect those Nightingale skills, my patience for playing dead had reached its limit. To that end, and talking to myself, I threw back the sheet.
“I’m out of here!”
Of course, any funny story, even a true one from our olden days, must be set next to an elevator full of people who accidentally push the button to the sub-lower level in search of the parking garage.
Like a beautifully choreographed slow-motion dancer moving across a stage, the Otis door slid open at the exact moment I hopped off of my not-so-final resting place. Perfect timing.
For one second, I saw a wide-eyed older lady put her hand across her chest as if to quell any sudden tachycardia. A man beside her was able to hit the close-the-door number lickety-split. That’s the last I saw of them, a thing for which I’m sure she was delighted.
Later, as my fellow soothers of fevered brows gathered for supper in the hospital cafeteria, most of the talk was about the events of the day. There were lots of interesting and amusing stories, but for some reason, I felt unusually quiet.
My suitemate finally nudged me.
“Hey, where did you go?”
I smiled, too tired to talk, and still the teensiest bit introspective.
“Heaven…I guess.”
“Wow! You weren’t deceased, were you?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
I have often thought about that simulated disaster drill and how critical it is that in real life all humans need to be in preparation for the final transport into eternity.
That curtain call won’t be play-acting. There will be no encore. No one gets to wait outside the door.
The end, yes, but also a beginning.
_____
*True story
Ecclesiastes 7:8
The end of a thing is better than its beginning; The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
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