Writing Blog of arizonamyrie

procrastination..........

2007-11-19T19:15:00.001-08:00

I have a test tomorrow. Guess what I'm not doing right now?

And, stolen from a random blog. The firsts:
1. Fell in love - 19
2. Got a myspace account - Three months ago, never use it.
3. Got drunk - 21st birthday.
4. Smoked weed - Never.
5. Got french kissed - Never got that far with a guy yet. There's been kissing, just not snogging.
6. Went to the hospital for surgery - Gum graft - 13.
7. Got your heart broken badly - 13.
8. Lost a pet - Never, but probably soon *wibble*
9. Got arrested - Never
10. Smoked a cigarette - Never
11. Broken a bone - 12 - the second, third, and fourth phalanges of my left hand.
12. Went to a concert - too many to count.
13. Got your own cell phone - 18.
14. Got a speeding ticket - Never.
15. Ran away - Never.
16. Snuck out of the house - Never.
17. Pierced other than your ears - Cartilage count? 23.
18. Got a tattoo - Never. Saving up though.
19. Bought porn - Never.
20. Totaled a car - Never.
21. Moved out of your parents' house - two years in college (23-24), but I'm back.
22. How old are you now? - 26
23. Had a kid - Never.

Red, Not Blue

2007-08-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

So, I've got tongue-tied, in a figurative way. I've been working on this fanfic for Doctor Who for a good few months now, and a few nights ago, sat down and just popped this out. I've edited a few words here and there, but haven't done much more. I know where I want the story to go, but don't know how to take it from point A to Z without it being a story where Rose goes for a walk.

The episode is set during "Love and Monsters" in the second season, and features around the premise that the Doctor is having a bad day and is acting an all-around jerk to Rose. She decides to go for a walk to give him some space, and proceeds to meet this world's version of John Lumic, only here, he is an insane homeless man yelling about "the metal men."

Over the course of the fic, Rose befriends him as she realizes that no one believes him, and that his warnings shouldn't be written off as just senility. The final bit (spoiler in white:) has Rose leaning over the dying Lumic and the Doctor coming up behind her and giving her a hug in apology for being a jerk. (end spoiler). So, how do I get to that point?

~~~~~
CHAPTER ONE

Rose stared at the two buckets in front of her in the factory; one was red and the other was blue, both containing different liquids that smelled horrible, if not identical to the human nose. Of course, in this case as in all the other cases, it was not to her human nose that the scent mattered, but to the distinguishing nose of a certain Time Lord who would know the difference between two identical substances if ever presented with the opportunity to decipher them, which he was about to be. As she knelt down to pick up the bucket, at the same time trying to ignore the scent which she knew would permeate her hair, skin, and clothes for weeks, she noticed that someone had scribbled something with chalk on the concrete wall behind the buckets. She knelt forward to have a closer look at the hazy image made by a half-hazard hand that longed to be remembered, and felt a shudder go up her spine when she recognized it; her father was alive over there in the world where her mother had died. She ran her hand over the cool concrete to see if it was real, the smell from the buckets no longer nauseating her, when she heard the Doctor call her name. In a rush of confusion and haste she took one of the buckets without looking and ran to the sound of his voice…

"I said 'red' not 'blue!' Humans! How hard is it to mix up two simple colors?" The Doctor whined from the console while pushing random buttons whose functions Rose had long ago given up learning. She was sure that whatever he was doing was important to someone somewhere, but at the moment, she couldn't care less. Instead, she was seated in the big chair by the console, first aid kit open, and dabbing her scrapes and bruises that had appeared during this latest adventure. She could see a few marks on the Doctor and wanted to help him out, as she usually did, but she was still too distracted to know what to do, what to think.

"Sorry." She had seen that symbol earlier today, the same symbol they had encountered on Pete's world, but she knew that now was not the time to bring it up, as the Doctor was deep into whatever he was doing. "I was distracted and grabbed the one. I thought you told me to-"

"Really Rose. Do they even teach you colors here on Earth?"

"It was a simple mistake. Anyways, we fixed it in the end."

"No. I fixed it." He stopped for the moment to stare at Rose and make his point clear before going back to pushing the buttons, oblivious to her presence in the room.

"Well excuse me then!"

"The red one contained a chemical that was a sedative to the Hoix…" Rose heard the Doctor yell down the corridor as she limped off to her bedroom, first aid kit in tow. While she usually felt as if she were the Doctor's equal, or at least the one person who came close to trying to understand him, today was one of many days where she felt more like his pet. And there were more and more days like this one on the TARDIS as of late. Ever since she had met Sarah Jane she felt like she was just another version of K-9; a human to keep the great Doctor company. Then, his meeting Madame du Pompadour only made these days worse. Now she had seen what kind of person he would fall in love with. She at least felt reassured with the knowledge that she and the Doctor had bonded a bit since then, patched up old wounds, but there was still something wrong between them. He had become more distant, and she had seen him making eyes at that Ida Scott back on that impossible planet orbiting that impossible black hole when he thought she wasn't looking. She humored herself that his reaction to the mortgage joke was just that, a joke, but during the last few days she thought it was more a fear of some sort of commitment showing itself. This only made her own feelings of inadequacy, mainly being the latest pet, even worse.

She opened the door to her room and flopped down on the bed, still hearing the Doctor mutter about all the problems with humanity from the console room. It seemed that the days she was most annoyed with him were the ones where he was perfectly audible wherever she retreated in the TARDIS, today of course was no exception. She should have just told him about the symbol, but at the same time, she figured it was just graffiti; something innocent some kid drew when he snuck into the factory.

Rose set aside the first aid kit and took the memory box out from under her bed, the box that hid her deepest secrets, some good and some bad. The one she was looking for in particular was a pamphlet she had stowed away after their trip to Pete's world - the advertisement for Cybus Industries. She pulled out various stacks of papers, bills, pictures, and finally found an envelope that contained the pamphlet and a few pictures of Mickey. She remembered that day too well; after she and the Doctor had departed she slinked off to her room and took out this same box, only to place the pictures of Mickey and this pamphlet in an old greeting card envelope from him. She had long since lost the card itself - it was some silly thing with a monkey wishing her a happy birthday, maybe Mickey had it - yet the envelope remained. The more she held it the more she realized that she could still smell the scent of the candles and the frosting on the cupcake that night. She closed her eyes and held the envelope to her nose when the TARDIS gave a sudden lurch.

"No! Not now, you ancient piece of secondhand scrap!" the Doctor's voice was clear despite the length of the corridor it had to travel. Rose's stomach lunged when the TARDIS made a second jerk in reaction to the Doctor's comment. It was one thing to be the Doctor's companion when he was having a bad day, and another thing to be his worn and battered ship. At least she could grab a bag and get away from him for a while; the poor ship was stuck with his sometimes violent repairs. Rose put the envelope in her pocket, saving it for later, and went to close the door to her bedroom. Just as she put her hand on the knob, the Doctor popped into the doorframe.

"Watch what you're doing there - I refuse to have some girl break my nose on something as trivial as a bedroom door!" the Doctor yelled as he pushed his way into Rose's room.

"Nice to see you too," Rose said, still standing with the doorknob in her hand. "I was in the middle of something."

"So was I. Have you seen that spare Sprachen-Heimel Double Titanium Coupling we picked up on the Moon of Raja 9?"

"You mean that slinky I was playing with?"

"Yes. That's the one."

"You sold it for a crate of bananas."

The Doctor walked away without saying anything to Rose, now muttering something under his voice that she was grateful for the TARDIS's refusal to translate for her. Gallifreyan was an eerie language, and even though she assumed the ship was protecting her from something horrible that she didn't want to even imagine, the sound of those foreign words spoken in his voice still sent chills down her spine. She closed the door, this time flicking the little latch just above the knob and sealing her privacy from him. This was a day she no longer wished to deal with time travel, or the Doctor, or the TARDIS, or anything. She just wanted time to herself. She picked up the box and was about to sit on her bed when the ship lurched again, this time throwing her hard against the door, knocking the wind out of her as she hit her head and left side against the door. She fell to the floor coughing, trying to regain her breath again.

"Rose? Rose! Are you alright? Rose?" The Doctor called from behind the locked door. "I'm opening your door Rose."

"No!" Rose coughed out a reply as she hear the sonic screwdriver start and stop, "I'll be fine." Even though she was grateful that he now showed concern, she was still angry with him. She at least wanted to regain some composure before he saw her like this. She sat against the door, listening to the footsteps and intangible vocables echo down the corridor. When she finally caught her breath and stood up, she noticed that the Doctor had gone back to the control room and was tinkering under the grating, a random limb popping up for a moment or two and a Gallifreyan curse word thrown into the air between. Rose took her coat and walked down to the console room; they must have landed as the rotor was still, and the faintest sound of air movement mixed with the Doctor's cursing under his breath were the only sounds of life other than her own. In her misery of recovering from the fall, she had missed his string of Gallifreyan swear words he was yelling on his way back to start repairs. When she arrived, she debated whether it was wise to announce her presence. He cursed again in Gallifreyan and she decided that he didn't need to know. She walked towards the door when she heard him mutter something.

"Rose? Don't go too far. I want you here when I'm finished."

"Okay."

"The TARDIS landed in London 2006, not my first choice of course, but she seems to like you better-"

"Prob'ly cause I don't hit her every time-"

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Anyway, don't dilly-dally, I don't want to have to send UNIT after you - or worse, Jackie…" The Doctor went back to his all-important work under the grating. At least he was somewhat nicer than he was before, but he was still acting like a complete jerk. She walked through the doors and closed them, patting the TARDIS on the side for luck. She really did feel sorry for that ship on days like these.

"The men, the men, the cold and distant metal men! They're coming, and they're going to get us!" a homeless man shuffled about in the alleyway behind the TARDIS. "The men, the men, the metal men!" he continued as Rose tried to get her bearings before noticing a familiar shop nearby. The TARDIS was being nice when she did all she could to crash-land three blocks away from her mum's flat.

"The metal men are coming, and it's all because of you!" The man ran up and pushed Rose up against a wall and started sniffing her. He stank of stale whiskey, aged fish, and something she couldn't entirely identify, though it was metallic. She tried to push him away, but the harder she fought the harder he pushed back. "The men, the men, the cold and distant metal men!"

She tried to scream, tried to get the Doctor's attention, but it was of no use; she had all she could do to keep the man at bay. She closed her eyes as he breathed hot, putrid air in her face.

"All right Johnny, leave the nice lady alone," a stranger's voice said from nearby. She could hear the man pinning her to the wall whimper with fright. "Come over here Johnny, we'll make sure the metal men won't come tonight." And Rose could smell a new scent - one of soap and the slight acrid fragrance of gunpowder. She could feel the man moving away from her and someone else moving close to her.

"It's okay dearie," a woman said as she put her hand on Rose's arm. "He wouldn't hurt you."

Rose opened her eyes to see a pair of police officers standing with her and the homeless man now. "Are you alright?" the female officer holding her arm asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"That's a nasty cut on your head there. Are you sure you're okay?"

Rose touched the bump that was now forming on the side of her head where she had previously hit it against the door in the TARDIS. "It's nothing, I'm fine really. I just -" And Rose stopped. How did she tell a police officer that she hit her head on the door of a space ship that also happened to travel through time?

"Okay then. Can we help you home?"

Rose looked over to the woman's partner who had now corralled the homeless man into the back of the vehicle. "I live just down the road and was out to buy some bread. I'm fine."

The female officer smiled. "Alright then dearie. If you need anything, here's my card."

"Thanks," Rose replied as she took the piece of paper from her. For the sake of her battered ego, she rested where she stood against the wall as she watched the police car pull away, with the crazy homeless man in the back. Funny, even today she felt for the man. He needed help. He needed someone to just listen to him. She closed her eyes for the briefest of moments to listen to the sounds of her London; it was the light flits of a Gallifreyan swearing on the air that pulled her back to reality. She opened her eyes and saw that beyond the TARDIS in the alleyway were hundreds of chalk marks, each depicting the mark of Cybus Industries. And it was that moment that Rose ran.

No, I'm not fixing your computer!!!

2007-08-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

I'm bored. So very very bored right now! I've been stuck inside due to allergies (evil) and aside from trying to find a way to create a mass extinction of ragweed, I've been playing online. Which pretty much means I've been stuck inside since for over 36 hours. UGH!!!!!!!!!!!

So, quizzes:

Your Score: Outcast Genius

86 % Nerd, 91% Geek, 56% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in all three, earning you the title of: Outcast Genius.

Outcast geniuses usually are bright enough to understand what society wants of them, and they just don't care! They are highly intelligent and passionate about the things they know are *truly* important in the world. Typically, this does not include sports, cars or make-up, but it can on occassion (and if it does then they know more than all of their friends combined in that subject).

Outcast geniuses can be very lonely, due to their being outcast from most normal groups and too smart for the room among many other types of dorks and geeks, but they can also be the types to eventually rule the world, ala Bill Gates, the prototypical Outcast Genius.

Congratulations!

Procrastination

2007-08-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Musician Doo doo de doo waaaa doo de doo! (<-- That's you playing something.) Everyone appreciates the band/orchestra geeks and the pretty voices. Whether you sing in the choir, participate in a school/local band, or sit at home writing music, you contribute a joy to society that everyone can agree on. Yay! Welcome to actually doing something for poor, pathetic human souls. (Just kidding.)
Literature Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Drama Nerd
Social Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

I'm bored, I'm tired, and I really should be studying for my two finals tomorrow. Oh, and I just found out that 1.) a friend of mine may have been in Minneapolis today and 2.) someone from my first college (and I finished) that I didn't get along with transferred to my new one. Hopefully not in the same major as I am in now. Maybe I should have just gone for the masters degree and put up with daily chiropractor visits.

Change

2007-07-05T20:42:00.001-07:00

I want to write something, but I don't know what to write. Maybe I should write about going to the cemetery, and why it really is normal. Or, driving home from work, or the new pharmacy going in on the north end of town. There's so many reminders of my childhood here at home, where I'm stuck right now. It's not really a bad stuck, just, I feel relatively comfortable in my skin here.

It all started going back to work this afternoon. I had been running late, so I just held off on going to the pharmacy - I could do it between my 3:00 and my 4:00 lessons. Well, my early one was late and my later one never showed up (I still don't know if he'll come this summer or not). So, I went to the pharmacy so I could get my asthma meds. Funny how a little trip can really give you perspective on life. I got back to work and found out my pharmacy will be closing at the end of the month; partly because the pharmacists wish to retire and partly because of the new Walgreens going in. Thing was, there was no mention of it at the pharmacy at all, and in fact, I've never seen it busier. I like this pharmacy; I know everyone there, and they know me. Just what a small town pharmacy should be in fact. Ever since we moved here back in fifth grade I've been going there for medications. I guess that's part of life when you have my health history. But today, just knowing that yet another landmark from my childhood is going away just, I don't know, makes everything different. Everything is changing around me, and I'm not sure I can handle it.

See, I thought that just going back to school and changing careers would be enough of a change to jump-start my life again. Make everything feel new again. And it does, as long as I'm in one of those parts of my life. Then, there are the hangovers from my childhood. The doctors at the clinic whose children I took piano lessons with, the pharmacy, the knowledge that certain teachers will always be there at that school I drive past everyday, and the never-changing cemetery. Maybe that's why I always snuck away there in high school. Just, everything around me is changing faster than I am, and, I'm not sure I can really handle that right now.

It all started just before I went to student teach. I had this idea, this faint remembrance of a former life almost - I wanted to take the MCAT. Not because I wanted to go into health care at that point in time, but, because I was curious. So, I started looking into where to take the test. That's when I discovered that there are twelve classes I should have taken in college that I didn't. Those twelve classes are the magic twelve for med school. So, a small whim had turned into prospects of medical school. With a music education degree. When did I go insane?

That idea of taking the classes led further. It started with a year and a half of subbing - which I probably liked but wished for my own classroom during that. That subbing led me to the worst year of health in my life - kidney problem, Achilles tendinitis, and aspiration pneumonia. Yummy. I switched doctors, because I was friends with the children of my own (and that's a lot of fun during a pelvic exam), and my new doctor pushed me to enroll at university. So I did, as a pre-physician's assistant major. At the same time, I discovered an accelerated bachelor's of nursing program. I took a CNA class. And everything has spiraled forward from there.

So here I am right now. I have my first paid time tomorrow at the nursing home. I'm in classes at the university. And I've started a brand new batch of students at the music store. I should be happy, but really, I'm not. I don't know what I feel. I just feel so lost and confused right now, about everything. My favorite students are gone, and the dreams that I had developed in college have disappeared. I'm not going to get my master's of music, I'm not going to conduct an orchestra, and I'm probably not going to be a published composer. Ever. And I have all that to deal with on a daily basis along with the question, "Why did you leave music?"

And really, everything probably was going well this week. The people in my life seem to know not to remind me of my failure in music. Which is good, because that just stresses me further. But, I ran into an old ghost from high school on Tuesday - the one person that has been kicked out of my house ever. In just a few words, everything was just ripped right open again, and old wounds began to bleed anew. I didn't want to be reminded that some people have it easier in their lives because they cheat and knock up the daughter of the president of the school board. I don't want to be reminded that I was overlooked for two separate jobs that I was already trained for, never even being offered an interview. I don't want to be reminded of how bright everyone thought my future to be, because, it's not. I'm ordinary, I'm not superhuman, and if everyone around me thinks that I am, well tough. My biggest goal right now is to blend in so well that no one notices me. Let me practice for the next chapter a bit, let me sit in the back of the class and do what I'm good at - listen. I just want to start my job, earn some money, and maybe get a place of my own where I can finally start to sort out what's become of my life. Maybe then I'll be able to accept change.

TWoP took away my DW!!!

2007-07-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

So, I'm pissed. TWoP is no longer recapping Doctor Who, and now, they've put the section on permanant hiatus as well with the quote, "Don't know what bit torrent is? Ask a Doctor Who fan." Grr!!!! So, there are several protests in the works on this one, and I don't care if I get kicked off the boards for it.

Meanwhile:

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Moderate
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

The Golden Compass

2007-06-17T17:23:00.001-07:00

I have to see this movie!!!

one more thing

2007-06-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

And because at times I am an egotistical maniac who can do no wrong...

Watch it! Rate it! Please! I have no clue as to how it ended up on AOL Videos however. Honestly, I don't, especially since I don't have an account there, or at MySpace (only here, LJ, TWoP, and YouTube).

Speaking of YouTube:

Also, I had been working on a fanvid set to KD Lang's "Calling All Angels" where it would be a reverse Doomsday and they'd end up hugging, but I can't get it to work right and it's too slow. But I did just think of "Feel Good" by Gorillaz - lots of hugs people!

CNA Updates

2007-06-03T18:29:00.001-07:00

Well, time has passed, but time does not heal all wounds. Of course, maybe I'm leading with this because of how I feel today - I came down with strep throat on my vacation last week. I just got back today, and still have a pounding headache, sore and swollen throat, and really cannot talk. Vacation was good otherwise. I didn't get to read or write as much as I wished to, but it was still a nice vacation despite being ill.

I finished the CNA class the day before vacation, which was a blast (the class, not the vacation - which will teach me never to spend money on down time as I only get sick then). Now, the promissor test is this Friday. Meanwhile, I have lessons to teach this week, a new student to schedule, another one to get a hold of to confirm the time (I called three weeks ago and never got a call back), and I need to call one tomorrow to reschedule for Tuesday so I can go to the promissor practice then. If I can't reschedule it's not a big deal, but I'd like to spend the night down there at the university again. Meanwhile, I have one class that has opened up online that can start this week, and I'm job hunting for nursing assistant jobs so I can be employed in the field so I can go into the university's accelerated BSN/RN program and then start the DrNP program after that. I guess this last week was my only free time from now until eternity.

So, my schedule this summer will consist of two classes (still a full-time load where I'm going), teaching lessons, and working as a CNA. Maybe in my freetime I'll get a chance to embibe in music or writing or something. My fall semester will have three lab classes and one nursing elective along with teaching, working as a CNA, and applying for the accel program. Then, spring will slow down a bit with only two lab classes. The trick will come with finding health insurance I can afford however. I'll be going to one soon, but the jobs I'm applying for will make me eligible for their insurance, which means that come the start of the accel program, I lose that insurance and have to go back to an insurance that will not cover pre-existing conditions for six months. I guess in the long run it's worth it, but right now, it seems complicated as hell.

I'm still writing. I wrote one part of thirteen "Doctor Who" fanfics that take place between S2 and S3. I've really gotten into that show. I've also started a separate one that takes place during "Love and Monsters" in S2 where Rose meets this dimension's version of John Lumic, the founder of "Cybus Industries." The plot is that Lumic is not an all powerful aristocrat but instead an old man suffering from Alzheimer's and living on public support. He recognizes Rose as the "Bad Wolf" and prophesizes to her the events of Doomsday throughout several meetings. They connect and she is there at his death, where he tells her "...the metal men are coming." Meanwhile, the Doctor is ignoring Rose as he's working on something with the Hoix and Rose finds out that Elton has hurt her mother. So, Rose has these three dilemmas going on all at the same time, and she starts the first chapter feeling like "the tin dog" that Mickey always referred to himself as after "School Reunion." I've decided that the Doctor will stop ignoring her on her final trip to visit Lumic. After Lumic tells Rose his last words, the Doctor will only call him a "madman" and is in no way the same person they knew on Pete's world. This outrages Rose as she feels she is once again being treated as the Doctor's pet and not companion. (For the record, I'm a Ten/Rose shipper, but need to write something that shows some struggle in their relationship). The Doctor finally changes his ways after Rose tells him that Elton hurt her mother, and they go and find him, and the story jumps back into canon. However, the last chapter deals with her fears of inadequacy compared to the Doctor.

I've also been working on chapter eleven (still) of Sara. I'm stuck though. There are two points where I want to include short flashbacks to where Sara met Cole and thought she fell in love instantly. I have them both started, but cannot transition them back into the chapter. This is the first time I've had a problem with that story. I want to finish it so I can send it out and share it with everyone. I have chapters twelve through sixteen outlined but want to finish eleven before I go ahead with them.

Well, I wanted to do some writing tonight still, and maybe this post will count for it, or maybe not. I'm reading Paul Cornell's DW novel "Human Nature" after seeing the episode(s) of the same title and now exclaiming that it is the most awesomest show ever (end fan-girl rant). Actually, I'm hoping that if RTD ever quits as exec producer, Cornell will take charge and work his magic, as everything I've read of his so far has been wonderful. Plus, I found his blog tonight. Even better!

Time to take more Advil and get back to work...

Idol Gives Back

2007-04-26T23:07:00.000-07:00

So I'm a sap when it comes to charity events, and "Idol Gives Back" is no exception to that. And, the code to the MySpace badge below (let's hope it works) shows that it's somehow connected to "Red Nose Day" that the BBC was involved with back in March. Very cool!

Doctor Who Series 3 Trailer Transcripts

2007-03-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

To see what I'm talking about, visit the BBC Doctor Who website for the two new trailers for the season premiere on March 31, 2007.

Trailer 1:
M: I battle with my textbooks.
D: I battle with monsters.
M: I try to save money.
D: I try to save the universe.
M: I'm gonna be a doctor.
D: I am The Doctor.
M: Well. Lets hope this box is big enough for the both of us.
Camera pans to have Doctor and Martha facing each other in front of the TARDIS. Scenes then flash including:

Doctor flying the TARDIS
Aliens
Aliens holding a device/weapon up to Doctor
Martha/Doctor running in hospital
Lasers
Spaceships
Futuristic city skyline
Dalek
Kid from early 20th century in sewer
Doctor reaching down for said kid in sewer
Doctor/Martha in hospital

A: Doctor Who. Coming soon to BBC1.

Trailer 2:
M: I need a guy who's smart,
D: Seems right, it works for me.
M: Who likes traveling,
D: I've been around the block a few times.
M: Who has a big heart,
D: Two of those, actually.
M: And someone who can make the time.
D: Ah, now that's my speciality.
Camera pans to have Doctor and Martha facing each other in front of the TARDIS. Scenes then flash including:

Martha falling on TARDIS grating while in flight/landing
Doctor looking up
Spaceship over older brick buildings
Martha running
Doctor running with aliens
Pigs a la "Aliens of London"
Daleks
Something flying
Martha and Doctor in another small spaceship
Small spaceship flying among other identical ones
Another pig
Doctor and Martha running again (but from pig)
Martha giving Doctor CPR
Doctor kissing Martha
Doctor carrying Martha
Doctor and Martha standing in front of TARDIS as in opening scene

A: Doctor Who. Coming soon to BBC1.

Artwork/Videos/Etc...

2007-03-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

Doctor Who Desktops - 1280x1024:

Videos:

"Crazy"

Beyond Forgotten Walls - Chapter 1

2007-03-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Title: Beyond Forgotten Walls
Author: arizonamyrie/entercreativename (for fanfic.net)
Writing Stage: pre-beta
Category: Doctor Who, fanfic
Genre: action/adventure
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Set immediately after the events of "The Runaway Bride," the Doctor is in the TARDIS when the ship figures out a way to get back to Rose.

~~~~

CHAPTER ONE

The Doctor stared into his monitor on the TARDIS and saw the snow falling gently on the little street just outside London, the little street that almost brought him someone to forget the little love of his life that he had just said his final goodbye to only ten hours before. It was Christmas now, or just after, and images of the Tyler flat still pulsated through his old brain; images of lifetimes now past and companions now grown and aged came flooding through as well as the picture on the monitor disappeared into the black void of time and space. He could go anywhere, anytime and all he wanted to do was to sit on the ramp up into the console room with the doors open and stare into the bleak nothingness of space, feeling its eternal isolation. He wanted to do that earlier, but could not as a bride appeared before him, many millions of miles away from home. He had to take care of that little intrusion before he could brood in his loneliness.

“Where should we go today old girl?” the Doctor asked as he stroked the old console with a gentle hand. How many times had he caught Rose watching him with that simple gesture before? How many times had he caught himself yelling at her for laughing at him because of that gesture? He almost forgot, he wanted to forget, but he knew that something was different about Rose. She wasn’t just another companion, there was more about her. Apart from saving his life, and the whole of humanity back on the Game Station, he knew that she had awakened a part of him he had declared dead long ago, a part that insisted on feeling love and beauty and life.

“Ah, I see. You miss her too,” the Doctor responded to a slight hiccup in the TARDIS’s movement through the vortex. He wanted to give in, allow the girl to just rest and get over the loss of Rose as well, but at the same time knew that if he did, he would give into his desire to fall into the darkness that had taken over his life since that day at Torchwood Tower. Even though he refused to give into that darkness, he knew that he needed to stop and take in her loss at some point for him to survive. “There’s never any rest for us travelers, is there?” he said to the ship around him. “I know we’re old, but we have to keep going. It’s what we do. We cannot stop.”

He wanted to feel the pain of her loss, but at the same wanted to feel physical pain envelope him. He wanted to fight, kick, scream, do whatever he could do to almost self-destruct. All the pain and confusion from this and his last regeneration were finally building up in him until he felt it - the TARDIS hiccupped again.

Rose had been left across the void several months ago, and until recently, he thought he would never see her again. Then one day the TARDIS hiccupped and he saw that she was telling him that there was a way to reach out to Rose, to say a proper goodbye. That was a few weeks ago for him. He followed the TARDIS’s hiccup and found the last little tear between dimensions and reached out for Rose. He listened to the ship as she hiccupped again, remembering his fortune from the last time.

“What are you saying girl?” he asked aloud, knowing that there would be no audible response. His ship was trying to tell him there could be a way back to Rose though.

The Doctor looked into the monitor and pushed some buttons.

“I’m coming for you Rose Tyler, I’m coming to get you back,” he said as he pushed a button that thrust him and the TARDIS across time and space. He was going to get his love back.

Beyond Forgotten Walls - Prologue

2007-03-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

Title: Beyond Forgotten Walls
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: first draft
Category: Doctor Who fanfic
Genre: action/adventure
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,085
Warnings: mention of student's death
Summary: We meet Juliet Hatten, a choir teacher at a small school in Illinois shortly before she finds out the most tragic news of her career.

~~~~
PROLOGUE

“Ms. Hatten, please come to the office, Ms. Hatten to the office.”

The PA rang so innocently that day, its usual beep and the secretary’s kind voice seemed to shock the young woman out of the daze of the required teacher’s work day at the end of the semester. Even though there was a phone on her desk in her classroom, where she had been holed up reclusive for the last several hours, the school’s secretary still insisted on using the other method of calling a person’s attention to other places in the building.

Juliet Hatten looked up from the stack of papers in front of her when she heard her name blare over the old public announcement system in her old school in the old city she had now called her home for only a short two years. The building was in a literal state of disrepair; the school was in continual budget cuts, and the cracking of the PA was beginning to irritate her even more than on most days. She longed for the semester she spent in England back in college, eating too many chips and drinking too much Guinness. She closed her eyes for a moment and almost felt as if she were back there again. It was the only place she felt she belonged.

There was an electricity was in the air that day, one of promise and hope, and yet, Julie thought she sensed something peculiar and wrong in the secretary’s voice. She put down her red pen, the one from her parents she received upon graduating college, and hoped that the secretary’s page was not to discuss the upcoming field trip to England; the music students had been looking forward to it for the last several years now, and everyone knew the money was scarce to come by.

Hearing the page go off again, and now assuming it was about the field trip, Juliet dug the files concerning it out of the filing cabinet and headed to the office, mocking the secretary’s voice repeating its insistence of the upcoming meeting. She passed the band teacher, John Smith, in the hallway, who joined in her mimicry of the old secretary who refused to use the phone system; it had been in the building only for fifteen years, surely she knew how to use it.

As Juliet entered the office, she saw a man standing in front of the secretary’s desk with the principal and guidance counselor. As she approached, she knew the man - a deputy in the sheriff’s office. She had gone on a date with him a year ago but never returned the attention he gave. Her coworkers both looked sullen as the deputy nodded to her and began to tell her why he was here.

The only thing Juliet heard was the sound of her papers hitting the floor.

“It’ll be okay…”

“You’ll get by…”

“It gets easier with time…”

Everyone around her kept saying words and doing things that just did not register in her brain. Every sound buzzed and stung her as she was trying to take in the news she thought she had just heard, she couldn’t have just heard. She knelt down to pick up the papers that had just fallen to the floor; the guidance counselor had already started the task for her.

“It’s always hard, but you learn to cope…”

She heard the words whispered from the woman kneeling next to her and handing her papers, yet, she didn’t really know what was going on. She looked back down to collect more of the files and now saw John talking to the deputy; a page having recently gone over the PA for him as well.

“You were his favorite teacher Juliet, and it would mean so much for you to speak at the funeral. Maybe you could sing, he loved to hear you sing…”

Funeral? Juliet clenched her eyes closed and felt for the other papers that had gathered around her; she refused to shed a tear in front of her coworkers and she refused even more so in front of that deputy. She had never been able to handle death well. That’s why she went into teaching instead of spending the next five years of her life singing at weddings and funerals and running from audition to audition. Spending all your time with youth kept you young, and kept you mind off what would inevitably come at the end your life, or anyone else’s life for that matter. What was going on? Did these people just tell her that one of her students died? She felt herself gasping for air and before she could react to her sudden need for oxygen, she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders pulling her up off the cold floor.

“Come on Juliet, let’s go to my office,” John said as he pulled her up, motioning for the other staff to bring the files back to her later. “I’ve got just the thing to help you.”

“What just happened in there?” Juliet asked as she felt her coworker helping her back to their part of the building, the only part of this nation that felt somewhat like home to her.

“I’d like to say it will be easier once the shock wears off, but it won’t. I don’t mean to be blunt Juliet, but it’s just the truth. We all have students that die, it’s rough, but you get past it.” John opened the door to his office and sat her in a chair in the corner he used for late-night score study and went for the electric kettle. “Here, drink this,” he said as he passed her a cup of tea.

“This couldn’t have come at a worse time. Christmas. What a holiday this will be for his family.”

“I see what your students mean now.”

Juliet stopped as she heard those words, some of the tea sloshing onto her sweater. “What do you mean?”

John had pulled his desk chair up across from Juliet now, a cup of tea in his hands as well. “It’s nothing. We just need to get through this. At least our holiday concerts are over.”

Juliet sighed, sipping her tea. “But the trips in two months and then it’s festival season after that.”

“One thing at a time, one thing at a time.”

The two teachers sat in the band office for the remainder of the afternoon, sipping their tea and going over funeral plans.

House FanFiction

2007-03-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

As I'm expanding my portfolio on this blog, so to save space on the navigation links to the right, there will be a list of posts with the links to the art/fic in each category.

So, here is a listing of my House Fanfic:

In the Last Days of Azrael

Ten years have past in Princeton, New Jersey and a young resident at PPTH meets a lonely man with knowledge beyond all possibilities.
Complete. Recced at TWoP by shirty_sheep, posted here and at ff.net.

Chapters 1-4
Chapters 5-6
Chapter 7
Chapters 8-10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12 version 1
Chapter 12 version 2
Chapter 13
Chapter 14-16
Chapter 17-19

A Holiday Album

Brief snippets of what House & Co. are doing on Christmas 2005.
Complete. Posted at ff.net.
Link!

Every Second

Chase falls ill and it is up to House to figure out why.
Compete. Posted at ff.net.

Link!

Of Moments Past

House ODs on Vicodin and hallucinates that PPTH is deteriorating around him.
House also has to release Stacy from his mind's possession.
In Progress. Posted at ff.net.
Interesting study of what happens when a writer runs out of tension in a story.
Link!

2007-03-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

Two new desktops, just because. Both are Doctor Who related, the first is a Rose/Ten one and the second is David Tennant in Blackpool, but I loved the pic and must manipulated it.

Meanwhile...

I'm bored, I feel like I'm stuck, I'm going nowhere professionally, and I'm about to leap into a completely different endeavor in my life. Which all means that I'm currently a neurotic mess about to break into a million different pieces. My writing is getting better - the Doctor Who fanfic I've been posting at Pit of Voles and WhoFic is doing quite well. One person even said that it was good enough to be published, which makes me happy. But, as well as I'm doing artistically (note, not earning money), doesn't mean my confidence and self-esteem is growing. Hardly. I'm still UNEMPLOYED!!! It seems that those to facets of my own pop-psychology are directly tied into the dollar amount earned on my bimonthly paycheck, which as I've not been subbing much, is NONEXISTANT!!!

So, I'm stuck. I need a change. It's not coming soon enough. And my sleeping patterns are now officially enough to drive the sanest psychologist completely off the wall (hint, all I remember of this evening is saying, "Oh, Lost is on..." and then I was asleep again). I'm becoming nocturnal again, which is usually not a good thing. Of course, there are plenty of places where I can work as a CNA on second or third shift. That would be fun. And still teach lessons. And take classes.

Of course, this whole idea of giving up the hopes and dreams that I had accumulated over the last six and a half or more years, and breaking the heart of my poor dead grandmother, has its disadvantages. Any little mention of job hunts or teaching music (what I went to school for the first time) makes my heart skip a beat and then palpitate. Any mention of music in general, at least until I get the BM, FNP behind my name will probably make me want to pass out. Is it really worth it to change like this? I know it will probably be easier in the long run, but I still feel like I'm selling out my creative side to corporate greed. I loved the idea of being bohemian, but now, I'm finding it's really not what Puccini made it out to be. It sucks not having insurance because I can't afford it. It sucks living with my parents for the same reason, borrowing their car, their internet access. Pretty much, it sucks not being able to be self-reliant.

I just want a paycheck.

Doctor Who FanVid - Crazy

2007-02-19T22:20:00.000-08:00

I decided to spend my weekend figuring out Windows Movie Maker, with some pretty good rsults:

Hmm, I'm like David Tennant

2007-02-17T18:11:00.001-08:00

You scored as 10th Doctor. Rude and not ginger.
Dressed in a smart suit and very helpfull,
you don't let people get away with things,
and with your glasses you won't miss much!

10th Doctor

100%

3rd doctor

92%

1st Doctor

83%

9th Doctor

83%

5th Doctor

67%

4th Doctor

58%

8th Doctor

50%

6th doctor

50%

Davros

50%

2nd doctor

33%

a Dalek

33%

7th Doctor

17%

What Doctor Who character are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

I'm Cursed as an OverAchiever

2007-02-17T17:10:00.001-08:00

Your Aura is Green

Your Personality: You are a high acheiver who is very competitive. You're bound to reach your goals, no matter how lofty.

You in Love: Picky with high standards, it's hard to find your match. You need a man as driven as you are!

Your Career: You need a high profile, challenging career to satisfy you. Consider finance, sales, or running your own company.

What Color Is Your Aura?

Sara, Chapter 10 - Behind Closed Doors

2007-02-08T20:45:00.000-08:00

Title: Behind Closed Doors
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: first draft
Category: fiction, chapter 10 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,943
Warnings: physical violence
Summary: Sophie goes to visit her husband at work before a counseling session where she runs into Paul waiting to see the same man about a different matter.

~~~~
10.) BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

I stood in the middle of the hallway looking across from me, staring at the letters of my last name on the door ahead of me, the other letters on that door formed a word too familiar to me at this time in my life. I looked at the letters and felt them sear the pain they inflicted in my life into my skin, the fire of the relationship that they represented burning me in their metaphorical flame. I stood in the hallway, busy office workers walking past me, ignoring me as if I were just another person to occupy the building with them, one more set of prying eyes to see that work was being done, one more set of lungs searching for the oxygen that sustained them. All around me, the scent of stale coffee and even staler aftershave, a sin from my past that I committed last Christmas and Robert felt obligated to wear, danced around me, taunting me and calling me into their lair.

I had arrived at my husband’s office and stood to face yet another closed door.

Growing up in Boston, my family always tried to never close doors in my face, real or metaphor. When my mother had cancer, she told us. When my father had a drinking problem shortly afterwards, he told us as well. When my sister had her first kiss, she told me. When I met Robert, I told everyone. It was just understood that in our family, we were a team, and teammates don’t keep anything from each other.

Then, after college, when I found Robert in that bar in the hotel, everything changed. That evening already, he closed the doors around me. When we made love, even though we were the only two in the apartment, all the doors in the room were closed. When he left for work the next morning, he never bothered to tell me; I awoke to an empty apartment with no consideration to how I would find my way through Chicago back to my hotel, nor any way to find where Robert was at that time. Throughout the years that came after that, Robert bore me the same lack of considerations as I opened the doors in front of him.

As we progressed through our relationship, I began to notice more and more of the things he kept from me. At first it was little things such as coming home from a bar and telling me he was with a client, a half-truth in actuality as I began to know him better. Then it progressed; he’d claim that he had to go out of town for a weekend on business, when he came back, his clothes often smelled of campfires and mud. When I began to question him about this things, he was a first miffed that I did, then that progressed as well. The yelling became slapping which then became hitting and then kicking. The door closed on truth early on in our marriage, and I now wish I had recognized that sooner.

So here I stood in front of the door to his office suite, smelling his stale coffee and cologne. He had never wanted the scent, and I had never wanted to give it to him, but we were stuck in our rituals, much like I never wanted much of the jewelry he gave my at the most spontaneous of times, the more I thought about it the more I realized that the jewelry category included the ring on my left hand.

I didn’t know why I was hesitating to open the door. I couldn’t fear him at work, could I? These last several days of freedom and finally being back with my family had reopened the doors on the hopes and dreams I had long abandoned for the supposed marital bliss I would inherit from a life with Robert. I was obviously wrong. Here we were - a wife standing outside her husband’s office fearful of bringing him to the couple’s counselor she had hired a few days before without her husband knowing. I had spoken to his secretary on the phone earlier this morning who had assured me that she would book our time together into his daily planner for him.

Really, if it were not for the fact that I want to see Robert resolve the issues that life had created for him, I would not be here right now. I would be packing my things and saying my goodbyes to the few acquaintances afforded to me during this time here in Chicago. I would be starting to look for a teaching job and seeking to reissue my Massachusetts license that I had let slip a year ago. At the least I would be back in the hotel room watching old movies and eating room service ice cream with my mother, sister, Paul, and Princess. Paul seemed to still be sleeping and Princess had insisted she be dropped off at St. Anthony’s despite that neighborhood no longer being safe for her. She insisted that it never was, but it was home and she demanded that she return and fight her own battles. I feared for her safety.

I licked my lips, the nerves of the encounter that lie ahead of me had caused them to dry out; I cursed my decision to not put my lip balm in my bag. As I slowly opened the door to my husband’s waiting room, the scent of the stale coffee intensified and I saw the burnt sludge lay in the bottom of the coffee pot, long abandoned by anyone for fear of what may happen after drinking it. I walked into the room and his receptionist barely moved from filing her nails to tell me that he was running late.

I did not want to be here.

I sat down across the room from a briefcase, coat, and magazine abandoned on a chair, myself searching a table near me for anything to read, even though most of these magazines I had already read at home or waiting for Robert on other numerous occasions. A few years ago I found it odd that a wife would have to schedule an appointment to talk to her husband, and Robert seemed to find his own unique way to explain that closed door to me as well. He never liked to be disturbed from his concentration.

Just as I settled into an article on the spread of Africa’s Sahara Desert, a familiar man walked into the room and sat down across from me next to the abandoned briefcase and coat. Paul. I looked at him and hoped he could see the contempt in my eyes for his decision of keeping my husband as his lawyer.

“He knows my history Sophie. No other lawyer does,” he said before I could even say a word, his eyes meeting mine and seeing how sick the thought of my husband defending someone innocent made me as most of my husband’s clientele were guilty long before they even thought to commit their crimes.

“There are other lawyers Paul, better lawyers. Labor lawyers even. Why not go to one of them?” I asked. It was a true question too. Even though I disproved of my husband’s practice, I knew enough to know that he would still recommend the right kind of lawyer for the right kind of job. My husband was most experienced in criminal defense, not labor, not divorce, or any other of the multitudes of specialties that existed in the law world.

“He did offer, but we discussed my history and decided that as most of the complaints that would be filed against me included incidents that he successfully defended me from, it would be better to just use his experience. Besides, how many times has he lost a case?”

“You’ve seen what he’s capable of Paul,” a man left the suite from one of the other offices in the back, my husband’s receptionist gave me a scorned look to try to keep me from speaking ill of my husband at his place of employment. As if a bad reputation would keep his clients from seeing him. I threw a similar look back to her. If only she knew what was really happening between Robert and me. Actually, I’m sure she did with all of his “late nights at the office.” I looked back at Paul and continued, “and what will come of his is never good.”

“And yet you’ve been with him how long Sophie?” Paul asked as he turned the page of his Chicago Tribune, unaware of my raised eyebrow. From what I knew of him, he wouldn’t care to read that paper unless it was to show off to someone his stature in life and his apparent need to read that paper.

“How long Sophie? Since your freshman year of college? Ten years with him? Am I right?” Paul asked me.

“It’s not the same thing. He’s changed. He was like me at first, until his graduation actually. It wasn’t until much later…”

“When you were actually committed to him in marriage and he knew you were stuck.”

I stopped for a moment in thought. Here was Paul, sitting just outside the inner sanctum of my husband’s world waiting to see him for help. Yet, here was Paul, trying to protect me from the man in that little room. It didn’t make any sense at all. I leaned back in my chair and sighed, not knowing how to approach this argument.

“Sophie, you are young and it is hard for you to understand.” Paul said.

“No, I understand. What I don’t understand is your contradiction. You are here to see my husband for help, which under normal circumstances is questionable, but at the same time, you are trying to push me away from him.” Robert’s receptionist dropped her nail file. “Paul, why?”

“Sophie, you’ve seen my life, and my life is stuck. I can’t go back to my past, which worked for me, because it does not exist anymore, and my present life is not working for me. There’s nothing.”

“Then look to your future Paul. Everything may look bleak right now, but just keep looking, trying, and you’ll find something, anything to latch onto to, sustain you. Anything could happen to you that will bring you back to something that will work. You say that you’re stuck Paul, but you’re anything but that. You’re just waiting, looking, trying to find the next chapter of your life. Something will happen Paul, something will change. You just have to find what that thing is.” I took a moment and stared at Paul and hoped that something I had said would begin to sink in soon because the way he was living his life was not healthy. I knew that Princess had been able to talk to him on a more intimate level, and I reminded myself to find her after this appointment with the couples counselor.

Paul and I kept our eyes locked on each other until a crash emanated from my husband’s office. “It’s my right to do this!” a man yelled. “Don’t be tellin’ me what I can an’ can’t do with my wife!” There was another crash.

Robert’s receptionist looked up from her Glamour magazine for a brief moment and looked at the door that Paul and I now stared at.

“Craig, I know that you’re entitled to this. Hell, I do that to my own wife now and then.” Robert’s voice carried through the door. “But, these charges are serious, and you’re looking at serious jail time here.”

“All I wanted to do was kiss her.”

“And I understand, but according to her, there was more, and that’s what we’ll be fighting in court tomorrow.”

“How else can you get your wife to listen to you?”

There was a pause in the conversation. Robert’s receptionist, used to outbursts like these, had gone back to reading her magazine, long finished with filing her nails. I looked her over and tried to push the thought out of my mind at how much she was the type that my Robert would normally prefer. I had seen him often in college flirting with that type while I was clutching his arm. I looked over at Paul who had set aside his newspaper and now sat at the edge of his chair. I could tell that he wanted to run into that office and tell my creep of a husband not to side with this Craig guy, however, I could also tell that Paul’s fear was about to win out over his courage and he would not help me, stand up for me.

I stood up and went over to the receptionist’s desk; she must have been yet another temp as there was no nameplate displayed. “What is going on in there?” I asked.

“Attorney client privileges ma’am, I can’t tell you.”

“I’m his wife.”

“You’ll have to take it up with Robbie.”

There was another crash and another shout from the two men in my husband’s office.

“What is going on?” I asked again, this time desperate.

“Linda,” Paul was standing besides me now, leaning over the desk into the receptionist’s face. “Have the common courtesy of telling your boss’s wife who is in there right now and what is going on before I barge into that office myself and make a spectacle of myself.”

Linda, the receptionist that Paul seemed to know rather well, sighed and set her magazine aside. “Fine, if you really insist. Craig’s here.”

“Who’s ‘Craig?’” I asked.

“Client of Robbie’s.”

“Yeah, we get that Linda.” Paul said.

I had far too many questions buzzing through my head to think straight. Paul seemed to realize this as I had gone silent and was staring at Linda.

“Why is Craig here?” Paul asked the woman.

“I can’t really say, but I know it will be worse if I don’t,” Paul hovered over her; a threatening look overtook his face. “Craig has been under investigation for domestic abuse, and he’s here talking with Robbie. He’s the best lawyer for this you know.”

“No, I don’t know, because what Craig did, what Robert did, is wrong.” Paul was defensive.

“Craig’s wife was brought into County General last night after he supposedly beat her. He fled and is hiding from the cops under a false name at a hotel nearby that I set up for him per Robbie’s request. He’s here now talking with Robbie trying to figure out their next step. But you didn’t hear it from me.” Linda picked up her magazine again, signaling an end to our questioning.

“But why call him ‘Robbie?’” I demanded to know.

Paul put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me over to where he was sitting before. “Sophie, your husband uses that as a nickname to help side with his clients. He tried it on me the first time I saw him for a DWI a couple of years ago but it didn’t work on me. It’s just this charisma thing he uses in the courtroom. I do the same thing at County General, and I’m sure you do the same at St. Anthony’s.”

I was now seated next to Paul and found that I had been staring at the floor for far too long. “I was married to him, been with him for ten years, and never knew this.” Tears edged into my field of vision, but I stayed them off.

“Sophie,” Paul put his arm around me like a surrogate father, “Marriage isn’t always what it seems. Everyone thinks it’s this perfect union, when in actuality, it’s anything but. We all lie to our partners to get what we want or need. I’m not saying it’s right, but everyone does it at one point or another. You even did so to me when you came into the ER for your wrist.”

I looked at Paul for a moment. What did he mean by that last statement. “Paul, you weren’t my doctor that night. McGregor was. How did you know what I said?”

Paul pulled his arm away from me and picked up his newspaper, adding a short, “It’s nothing” to his reply to me. I stood up and went back to my original seat in the waiting room, picked up my magazine, and continued to read.

There was another crash in the office.

“Robbie, sometimes ya just gotta hit them to make them behave.”

“And don’t think I take pleasure from it as well,” my husband yelled back to Craig. Paul threw his newspaper aside just as I stood up and ran into Robert’s office.

“Robert,” I yelled, “What are you saying? I thought we were past this!”

Robert came over to me and laid a gentle hand on my face, “Sophie, what are you doing here?” he asked as he leaned in to kiss me.

“No Robert, you know why I’m here and we’re already late.” I pulled his hand away from my face as I could feel Craig’s icy stare trying to break me down into the tiny bits that Robert seemed to create from me late at night. “Don’t you want this to work? I want this to work.”

With that, Robert raised his hand again and slapped me. With quickness, I put my own hand in the spot where he had just caused the pain, its sting just beginning to develop.

“Attorney client privileges Sophie. Get out.”

“No.”

“Don’t make me hurt you.”

“It’s not your place.”

Robert looked over at Craig, “It’s always a husband’s place.”

Paul, who had been lingering in the doorframe throughout our encounter walked towards us, “Robert, I know what you’ve done to her and I have a legal obligation to report it. The only reason that I haven’t is because of our professional relationship, which even then, I still have had an obligation to do so, even if I haven’t.”

“Paul, get back in the waiting room. I can handle the little misses on my own.”

“No, I don’t think you heard me right. I saw you slap her just now, just as I know she was trying to hide the broken arm from you last week, and just as I was her attending physician the night that you beat her and killed your defenseless child.”

Robert looked at Paul, suddenly enraged. “I think I know how to handle my own wife, I don’t need some client’s advice.”

“Isn’t that what you were just taking from this man here? His advice on how to treat your wife? Since when does a Harvard-educated lawyer listen to a scumbag client over the advice of other professionals around him?”

“Paul, if I were you I’d choose my own words more wisely, unless you are calling yourself a scumbag as well.”

The thick silence of tension hung in the room, waiting for the moment it could finally break. The three men were at a stalemate. Craig stood in the middle, with Robert looking to him for advice. Paul had tried to stand between my husband and I in an attempt to prevent further violence. I gently pushed Paul to the side and walked towards Robert. “Just dismiss Craig and come with me. I want to love you again, but if you keep doing this, I can’t. Just come with me, we can go to this session, and all will be well.”

Robert looked at me with glassy eyes, “No,” he said, and the room around me went black as I felt a foreign force suddenly push itself against my jaw.

When I awoke, the office was empty aside from Paul who now knelt over me, holding an icepack to my jaw. “Sophie,” he said, “Don’t move.” He moved the icepack and began to examine my neck. “Does this hurt?” he asked.

“A little,” I barely squeaked out.

Paul placed the icepack back on my jaw and Linda came with a second one, which he placed under my neck. “Don’t move, everything will be okay,” he tried to reassure me.

“Are you sure it will? Because, I’m pretty sure that my marriage is over.”

“Probably for the better,” he smiled. “I will have to report this, and if you want, the police can be here soon, along with an ambulance.”

“Why can’t I just leave? Why do I have to stay here?”

“I’m not sure if your neck was injured when you fell. I tried to catch you, and I did, but without an x-ray, it will be hard to tell if there is anything more seriously wrong than that black and blue mark that is starting on your jaw.”

I tried to sit up but Paul pushed me back to the floor. “Paul, I’m fine, my jaw hurts a little, my neck hurts a little, and I want to go back to the hotel.”

“Even if your neck didn’t hurt, I’d still want to have you checked out.” Paul said as he continued what he could of his physical exam.

“Paul, I’ve been through a lot worse with him and have just walked away.”

“And, look where it’s put you.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Yes it is and you know it better than anyone else. Would you have put up with this before?”

“No.”

“And neither should I.”

I looked at Paul for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘Neither should I’ Paul?”

“I fired Robert as a lawyer as soon as he hit you. You had already passed out by then so you wouldn’t remember. But I fired him, and then I told him off for you.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. I’m minus one lawyer, and by the end of the week, minus one job.” Paul helped me sit up.

“But, my neck.”

“You’re fine, but I’d still like to take you to a doctor.”

“You are one.”

“But the question is for how long.”

Paul helped me up off the floor and handed me my coat and purse from the chair before taking his own. I looked around throughout the office and knew that it would be the last time I would ever see the inside of this place. Part of me grieved and part rejoiced. But more of me knew that I was now alone in Chicago.

“You coming?” Paul asked. “I still want to take you for that x-ray.”

I smiled. Maybe I wasn’t alone after all.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” I said as I took one last look at the office and followed Paul down to his car. I closed the door behind me as I left and saw the name “Tyradil” across from me again, only now I began to wonder I could ever associate with those seven letters again. The fear and apprehension that I had felt shortly before coming here had been justified, and the same fear and apprehension that had overtaken me at points in my marriage would now never encompass me again.

I caught up to Paul at the building’s main entrance as he held the door open for me. A few people looked up here and there from their busywork to see who exactly was leaving the building, but I no longer cared. There were better things out there for me now, and by leaving this building, I was about to set out to find them and my new future, maybe even one with Paul and Princess, and whomever else I would find along the way.

Dreams Inspire Part II

2007-02-08T19:53:00.000-08:00

And, here's one that has me baffled as well, and I don't want to know what it's about!!! I used to do dream interpretation and there are times it scares the @$^* out of me.

However, in defense of this dream, I love it when I get to run in them. I'm out of shape and can't run half the time, so when I have a dream where I can do this effortlessly, it is more freeing than flying in a dream is for most people.

I was back in my college town, and had apparantly just gotten a job there when I ran into a former professor while out running one day. We ended up running together for awhile and he asked me to show him my favorite places to run, so I did. We had been running for awhile and were both getting thirsty so we stopped at a small internet cafe near campus and freshened up. When I came back out to meet him, he was outside, waiting for me. We decided we were going to go to the fine arts building and he started to run off. We were in a part of town that I knew he didn't know, and he ran off ahead of me, so I was getting worried that he would get lost, so I ran off after him as fast as I could run using a shortcut. I turned the corner and ran down a little street. Suddenly, when I got to the end of the street, rather than finding an intersection, I was standing on a pier at the edge of a large body of water. I ran down that pier to see if I could find where I was, as I did not know at the time (even though I was not scared). When I got to the end of the pier, all I could see in front of me was the bluest water and sky, along with the grassy embankment below. I turned around to run back to the street where I was, but I found that the pier had turned into an island - the center was the concrete I had been running on and all sides were the greenest grass. All around me was the most beautiful water and above me a beautiful sky with whispy white clouds streaking across it.

Dreams Inspire Part I

2007-02-08T19:52:00.000-08:00

Just posted this earlier tonight at TWoP, and now I'm planning to make a DW fanfic out of it:

I had this crazy dream last night, and I know it means something but I don't want to think about what it means.

I was somehow on a high school band field trip with my old high school band, only I was where I am now in life (a substitute teacher whose specialty happens to be band) but as a high school student again. I had been asleep on the band bus when the Doctor came to me in my sleep and told me that everyone in the band was in terrible danger and that we shouldn't go into the old house we were about to tour. I woke up and saw that our director was also awake and I told him that we would be in danger if we went to our next destination (the old house). I didn't tell him about the information coming from the Doctor in a dream, as I didn't want him to think I was crazy. He said it was nothing and proceeded to wake the band up. As we left the bus, I told the other people in me section that we were in danger but no one would believe me.

We all went into the house (which of all things was my elementary school), which was supposed to sell all this good chocolate and everything else you would want to buy at a tourist destination. Anyway, the owner of the house, this old crazy lady, greeted us. I was the last in the line to get in, and she took my arm and said, "Don't worry dearie, there's nothing to be afraid of," and gently pushed me into the house, locking the door behind me. As it had been some time since everyone had already entered, I decided to run to the upstairs where the band was starting to tour, to warn them. Everything in the house were in some shade of pink, purple, or white. Everything outside was dank, dingy, and gray like in the spring when the snow just barely begins to melt.

As I entered the first room, I noticed that there were a lot of Rose's things in there, including several really beautiful old-fashioned things and some of her clothes. All the jazz band guys were mocking me for being so worried. I said, "Don't you see, these belong to someone, and not the owner of this house!" They all proceeded to laugh at me and push me aside. I wanted to tell them that these things belonged to Rose, but was afraid they would mock me further.

I ran into the next room, a bathroom complete with a bubble bath where I just barely noticed at the bottom lay the Doctor's overcoat. Some of the saxophonists were in there and I yelled at them to leave and go back to the bus. One of them started to do so, but her friend told her not to pay attention to me. I yelled, "Can't you see that coat in the tub? It belongs to someone and we are all in danger!" Once again I was pushed out of the way and once again, denied that the item belonged to the Doctor.

I ran into the hallway/stairway outside the two rooms which was strangely deserted. I looked around and the old woman was back, telling me to go to the room at the top of the stairs, the one with the white door and peeling paint. I looked up there and had a funny feeling about the room. She tried to push me, but I told her to go ahead of me, so she did. I suddenly heard the Doctor yell, "No, not again!" from the room. I wanted to go help him, but I also heard his voice in my head telling me not to go near the room, and to get everyone out of the house. I began to turn around and get the band back to the bus when I noticed something on the floor - the Doctor's now smashed sonic screwdriver.

I ran into the room I had been in, which was now deserted as well. I ran through other rooms and found that I was the only person left in the house. I ran out the bus, but no one was there either, nor were they on the grounds. The Doctor's voice was back in my head telling me that I was the only one left from the band; the old woman had killed them all. I ran back up to the room she had wanted me to enter, but this time, everything in the house had decayed and aged, no one was left, but everything in it had aged as well. Just as I was about to enter the room to confront the old woman and save the Doctor, I woke up.

Hey, I just found the plot to the story I want to write.

Bilis Manger

2007-01-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

[quote]That's my prediction: Gallifrey will be the "Bad Wolf" of Series 3.[/quote]
I think it will have something to do as well. Actually, I don't even think The Doctor is the last Time Lord.

The finale of Torchwood featured "Bilis Manger" as a rather creepy guy who could travel between time periods without any noticable assistance. It also featured a monster similar to the one in "The Satan Pit." Though Jack defeated the monster in the show, nothing is stated of what happened to Manger. I think that Manger is a rogue Time Lord who avoided the Time War by hiding in 1941/2006 Cardiff and has somehow internalized whatever he needed to travel through time and/or used the Cardiff Rift. Aslo, the end of the TW finale featured the sounds of the TARDIS coming and going. I can easily see where the mention of "Galifrey" would be important if and when Jack and/or Bilis show up.

Also, that same episode of Torchwood features a return of "Badwolf" as well.

The Top Eleven Tenth Doctor Moments

2007-01-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

So I'm not quite sure when this blog turned into my own personal blog rather than just a place to put what I've written, but, if it's turned into, well THIS, then I need to include this. Inspired by the fact that my DVDs will ship tomorrow!

THE TOP ELEVEN TENTH DOCTOR MOMENTS:
11.) The Elevator Shaft
Rose (possibly as Cassandra) and the Doctor quickly "fall" down an elevator shaft in "New Earch"

10.) Satsuma
The running joke in "The Christmas Invasion," and the little fruit that could save the world in the end.

9.) The Doctor Falls
The Doctor decides to release himself from the safety harness in "The Satan Pit." Just as he is about to let go he tries to tell the SB6 crew member to tell Rose that he loves her, but he chokes on the words.

8.) "Always take a banana with you to a party."
The Doctor comes at last minute to rescue Rose and Mickey from the Clockwork Men after meeting "The Girl in the Fireplace." Problem is, he's drunk.

7.) "It's good to be a lunatic!"
The Doctor belts out "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" while taking Rose to 1979 to see Ian Dury in concert as well as the following scene.

6.)"But, I'm not from Mars."
The Doctor telling Donna where he's not from in "The Runaway Bride"

5.) "Galifrey."
The Doctor telling Donna where he's actually from in "TRB"

4.) "Her name was Rose."
The Doctor telling Donna Rose's name in "TRB"

3.) The Wall of Tears
The Doctor and Rose stand in the exact same place in the same room but different universes after being separated in "Doomsday."

2.) "Rose Tyler,..."
The Doctor finally trying to tell Rose that he loves her but then fading into nothing as the whole in the universe closes in "Doomsday."

1.) "How long will you stay with me?" "Forever"
The exchange between Rose and the Doctor in one of the opening scenes of "Doomsday."

Maria

2007-01-18T18:51:00.000-08:00

I love this song, I love this musical, I love this actor. I just don't know what to think of his singing. I love its raw emotion and how he almost breaks it often, but at the same time the aspect that almost breaks makes me cringe - especially with the damage my vocal chords have taken since the pneumonia last August.

And, can I just say how wonderful Carol Burnett is? Well, she is.

Scrooged!

2006-12-24T11:33:00.000-08:00

I hate Christmas.

It's not that I dislike the giving, the spending time with friends, the spirit of love and understanding. No, that's not it. It's more of what my family becomes every year of the last twenty-five years of my life (I just turned twenty-five last month). It's more about what we all have going on this time of the year. Preparations for concerts, subbing for everyone, getting sick, shopping, and of course, the last minute preparations for relatives who are coming out of committment and the need to show off than to say hello and see how we are really doing.

I hate Christmas.

If you had a...

Be right back, being summoned for more cleaning! Something I've been doigng ALL FUCKING WEEK!!!! On top of subbing, last minute shopping, all of the wrapping (lazy family) preparing projects for students, and yes, trying to finish that Mass that my damned mother keeps asking about.

Fuck I hate Christmas.

I remember growing up. From Thanksgiving to December 23, everyone around me was filled with the Christmas spirit. Then, the second the clock would turn to midnight, everything would change. My mother would start complaining that we would need to clean, get ready for church (we used to be church musicians), pack to visit Grandma (who died this summer - she's the lucky one - I've had this cold ever since). We'd be awoken at six in the morning, if not earlier, to start going about the day's to-do list, which really was stuff we had been doing all along or could have done earlier had someone asked. By noon I'd be hiding in my room trying to pretend I had died or gone missing so I could at least rest or relax a little before more chaos started.

This year I did baking as well. That was a joke. Last night my father hauled out a large shopping bag full of candy and other shit that I don't really want to eat. I had planned more baking and candy making but decided against it as I really didn't want to sweat off those extra pounds I'd be gaining later on in the new year. Now, my mother asked my father what he'd be serving my aunts when they come tomorrow - both of whom are on diets and one had gastric bypass surgury. His answer was "treats." I'm at the point where if I see another piece of candy I will scream and shove it up someone's ass.

I hate Christmas.

Christmas each year growing up was like that - pure Hell. Last year was a little better. We didn't go to church last year, not that I missed it. I became agnostic at least ten years ago. Last time I really believed in anything was when I was in eighth grade and I did it because the popular crowd had found "God." Now, agnosticism has faded to aetheism. There may have been a few extra beliefs mixed in along the way, but who's counting.

Huh, 350. That's not good.

I've had a cold since for sure June, maybe May. That cold had become pneumonia in August which lasted through the end of October. In early November I had a sinus infection. End of November that became bronchitis, and I still haven't recovered. I had to give up two weeks of subbing just to get to the point where I could breathe again. Even then, I still can't play flute.

So, 350. That should normally be 450.

In two hours I'll be forced to step foot into a church. Wait, we'll have to leave even earlier to get a parking spot, even though it's a block away from here. Mom will complain her knees hurt, I'll be worried about the oven burning down the house, Dad will be thinking about the computer game. We'll be going through the actions, not feeling anything. Anything not to feel though. If there were alcohol around here right now I would have chased the Advil and Darvocet (my ribcage is killing me from coughing and I've torn several bits of cartiledge) with it. None of us have really gone to church since I was in high school, even then we only went because we were the musicians. We went to church to work.

I hate Christmas.

One year I asked why we crammed three days of festivities into one night - church, cooking, presents, everything else. It was because on Christmas Day we had to travel up north to my Grandma's. If any of you were paying attention, you'd see the flaw in that arguement this year, unless of course we brought pickaxes and blowtorches with us. Even then, that would be creepy.

This year, all I want to do is have a nice supper of soup, maybe open a few presents. Listen to Christmas carols on the radio. Read a book next to the fireplace. Make hot chocolate as a family, maybe tea or spiced cider. That's all I've ever wanted for Christmas, but it's never happened. I just want to relax, recouperate. But it won't happen until I'm a bitter old woman, which I don't want to become.

Eventually, if I have an excuse, I'll probably spend a Christmas on my own, in my own solitude. I'll sleep in, take a hot bath, read, watch Christmas movies. Maybe I'll call up some relatives. But the whole idea of making Christmas something that it's not bothers me. Who are we trying to impress? Will random stranger show up on our doorstep and declare that we are doing it all wrong? That the house needs to be cleaner, the turkey bigger (I hate turkey too by the way), the tree greener and the presents bigger? No! It doesn't work that way. Can't the people around me be appreciative of what we have? Why do we have to always try to out-do each other, make others feel inadequate? Why do we have to try to prove to the outside world that we are the perfect family? We are not perfect, no one is. Why do we try to be? We can only be the best that we can be, which is as close to perfection as we can get.

I Wish I Was British

2006-12-05T22:08:00.000-08:00

Recognize these?

Hugh Laurie
Stephen Fry
Craig Charles
Jeeves and Wooster
Red Dwarf
Mike Myers

No, it's not some weird British night on PBS, it's:

Bohemian Rhapsody!!!

Ooo, and here's that Fellini thing I found ages ago but couldn't copy correctly AND want to remember.

If Fellini met Eminem:

One More - The Cambridge Footlights
including: Stephen Fry, Tony Slattery, Paul Shearer, Hugh Laurie, Penny Dwyer, and Emma Thompson

Subject matter is a little along the lines of tonight's Boston Legal, but eh, it's comedy!

Writer's Block

2006-12-01T17:05:00.000-08:00

You scored as C.G. Jung. You are more of a spiritualist than would be immediately apparent. Some of your notions are questioned by the cynical, but deep down you know the human consciousness is more than the flesh and tissue can account for. You tend to take a scientific observationist look on matters the average person wouldn't even begin to analyze. You personally are responsible for most of the ideas that are floating around in modern psychologist's/psychic's paltry little skulls. On the down side, you tend to be associated with that asshole Freud.

C.G. Jung

83%

Stephen Hawking

75%

Mother Teresa

67%

Friedrich Nietzsche

67%

Dante Alighieri

42%

Adolf Hitler

33%

Elvis Presley

33%

Steven Morrissey

33%

Jesus Christ

25%

Charles Manson

25%

Hugh Hefner

17%

Miyamoto Musashi

17%

Sigmund Freud

O.J. Simpson

What Pseudo Historical Figure Best Suits You?
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What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Northeast
The Midland
Philadelphia
The South
North Central
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

On Going Home

2006-10-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

Title: On Going Home
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: first draft
Category: nonfiction, essay
Genre: essay
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: one person's thoughts on the ways to find life and happiness.

~~~~~

On Going Home

I would give anything to kiss him.

My life, my career, my savings.

Anything.

Just for a single moment, to sit next to him and watch the water flow in the river situated just in front of me.

These are the thoughts that are racing through my head as I’m madly driving from park to park in my old hometown, trying in vain to find a place that is quiet, near water, and where I can be alone just so that I can think.

Who is this man that I speak of?

He could be person A, a man I’ve known for twelve years now. He is a man who would later become my big brother. You can’t kiss your brother.

More specifically, he is probably person B or C, both whom I’ve known for six years. If he is the former, I do not know where he is right now, even though I know the way to find him. I don’t like either thought for one reminds me of the personal loss I’ve taken while the other of the professional loss I’ve succumbed to, both of which have become indistinguishable in my mind.

And to be more exact, I know that he is person C, which means that this simple kiss that I would die for right now is a lot more complicated than I first thought it would be.

I finally find a park that I can hide in, a park that is safe enough to do so at least; the first, my favorite, had been next to a highway where I had never seen a police officer in at least ten years. So here I am now. Park B. Knowing me, I just cannot sit in the warm comfort of my car and enjoy the music on the radio as I stare out at the river in front of me. No. I need to enjoy this misery more and walk in the cold damp weather in worn out heels and a thin summer blouse, swearing up and down the trail that I never bothered to bring my coat with me on this venture in the first place.

This venture, the reason I have been forced to abandon hopes and dreams for a moment I will never have. I stop in front of my car to decide if I wish to find solace in the cold picnic table in front of me or continue further down this trail, my Achilles tendon starting to throb already from the sharp edge of my show digging into my heel. I look down the trail and see a pair of benches; the masochist in me must not be content enough yet so I decide to walk down that way.

Person C is The One, which means that I will never have him even if he were interested in me in the first place. He is the one who made me rediscover my love for my career choice and what I would do to get to the final product. I gave up everything personal to get that pink tassel and the piece of paper that said I had a bachelor’s degree. The problem then had become one of finding a job.

I began searching in my last semester of college, already wondering what lay ahead of me in my career path, already knowing that I was getting cold feet on my way to the alter of my future. I discovered from person C that I am married to this idea of a job. When I find one I do everything and anything needed to succeed, even putting in up to eighteen hour days seven days a week when called for. This, I discovered, tended to put a damper in my social, and more importantly, love life as I know that I have a tendency to keep people at a distance when I’m trying to accomplish a set goal, no matter how badly I need them. This I’ve discovered when I’ve had far too many friendships blow up in my face just as I’m about to reach the final goal.

After I graduated from college, I found a temporary fulltime position in my field, one that I took. Then I stopped searching for a while. Then I tore my Achilles tendon and almost became addicted to prescription painkillers in the process of recovering. When I was recovered enough to search again, I found the job I had wanted since high school. I applied. And I waited, sending in applications and resumes to other places all along. Then I discovered that a friend of person B had been offered the job that was supposed to be mine; I even interned in the position specifically because of the fact that it would be an in there after I graduated. It was the job of my dreams, it put me as an equal to person A, and I did not get it.

I was devastated.

I finally found my way to the benches in the park, my ankles complaining of the twists and turns they had taken along the uneven and rocky path, one that I had made up along the way as the paved one a few feet away from me was too ordinary. I climbed the riprap along the river back up to the benches and instantly remembered why I knew

Person D, or rather person A.1 if you want to follow a more appropriate chronological path, had lured me here once in high school. The last time I was at this pair of benches was when I was on my very last date before going off to college six and a half years earlier. All four men embodied the same characteristics, of which none are important right now.

The masochist in me wept with joy.

Instead of falling in love with these men--men whom I’ve wanted to tell my true feelings to, of which I could only tell person B as persons A and C were too far out of my league--I had fallen in love with my career, something which had proven fruitless in my efforts to attain. I had given up love, friendship, lasting memories for something I could never find as I had gone past my projected cutoff date for getting a job in my career.

Not getting the job I had planned on had become breaking up with my first true love, work. This led me to breaking up with my second love: my life plan.

The plan was simple. Graduate at college and by age twenty-five secure a fulltime job in my field of choice, which really is no longer relevant to me at this present time. I would work in that job for just under the amount of time needed to fulfill the first license at which time I would apply to the university of my choice to attain the double masters degree. This was the next step in my career. A month and eighteen days from today will mark the first quarter of a century of my life having past. I realize that I am officially stuck. I was sitting in the middle of a park in my hometown obsessing over a date I had in high school, one where I never kissed.

There was always my fallback plan, plan B. I would stop everything, take the necessary classes to succeed at the MCAT, and become a doctor. This plan had been the original plan before I fell in love with what I would go to college for--I was too confidant in that field and too much of a dreamer to attain what I needed in life. Problem was that plan B needed money. A lot of money as even though a state-run med school is cheaper than say Harvard, it still costs the annual budget of several small countries in Eastern Europe combined. The only way to get that money was to get a job. But I couldn’t get a job, not as easily as I had thought I could.

So, that led me to this day. A few weeks ago I had been dragged against my will to several temp agencies in the city. I had a few promises from these places, but I was never happy with anything, especially the circumstances of having to go there in the first place. In the time since, I had gotten a few calls to do menial day labor here or there, which made me even more disillusioned with my life. Just as I had given up on finding something good, I started to sign up again for temp work in my original field just as I had done when I first graduated from college.

Then, I got a call. There was a job. Not only was it a job, but it was a good job. But I’d have to take yet another test that I had taken at three of the four agencies I had visited. So, I took out a business suit and polished up my heels just so that I could go to the temp agency to take the ten key data entry test that I should have taken three weeks ago.

I took the test, I had convinced myself that I wanted this job. They told me that the bank was looking for someone new to the industry with new ideas and new ways to think. The name of the bank was innovative, the people there even more so. I was on the edge of a new career and it scared me.

Being on the edge is what had pulled me through the last sixteen months of my life; I have never yet decided what to do should I fall off that ledge.

I stop thinking; life has suddenly become too complicated. Being human was something I was never good at; I understood emotions and expression but never humanity really. I could never really tell when it was the right time to lean in, or when to just stop talking; my head was always in the clouds daydreaming about what a better future would bring. I looked up to the sky above me, looking at those same clouds but my view was obstructed. The trees around me moved gently in the cold wind, the damp air that was chilling my bones flowed through their soon to be bare branches.

I looked back down and saw the river in front of me moving swiftly; the yellow maple leaves dancing quick little circles down their watery pathway to their next destination of ash or soil. I hear the traffic all around me and feel the air whip around me, chilling me even further than I thought possible. Across the way is the dog groomer’s stand where I’ve taken my dog for a haircut ever since moving here in fifth grade. Next to it is the carwash where I learned how to use the automated system. Just a few steps from there is the gas station where I learned to like my addiction - coffee. My friends and I would stop there for cheap powdered cappuccino in high school while working late nights on class projects. And next to that is the restaurant where we would go for burgers, even though I never at red meat.

That wasn’t the end of it. Turning the corner was the grocery store that had been through three separate names since moving there; they had the best birthday cakes. In the plaza next to it was my pharmacy where I had gotten my vitamins since I was ten. My orthodontist’s office, my dentist’s office, the bank where I had my first checking account. Then the movie theater where I went on my first date and then the coffee shop where I had gone on my second.

This was life. This was home.

I know that they say you can never go home again, but somehow I had. Somehow, I had come back here and picked up where I left off when I moved away to college at age eighteen. I looked around and saw the movement of life around me in my hometown but yet was not comforted, something was not right.

In the six years since I had last sat on this bench, it appeared that nothing had changed and everything had stopped in its path; the lives of the people around me appeared to have just stayed exactly the same. Then I looked closer. The groomer had moved from one building to another. The carwash had changed hands. The restaurant was no longer Hardees but instead a locally owned family diner. The road they stood on had just reopened after being renovated and redesigned this summer. The changes continued.

The grocery store was in a new location with a new name and even newer building. The pharmacy was now part of a nationwide franchise. The dentist's son had moved into his office with him while my orthodontist had moved out of town completely. The bank where I had opened my first checking account still stood there, but I had since moved my accounts to the one where my orthodontist had once had his offices. The movie theater, well that didn't really change and probably won't for a very long time now. Point is, everything had changed yet it still remained the same.

I thought back to wanting that kiss from that man, or at least feeling his embrace. That’s what I wanted all along. That’s what home is. It isn’t a place that you can locate on a map with landmarks you can visit and buy souvenirs from. It’s something greater. It’s a state of mind. Growing up here, this was home. Going to college, that was home. Coming back here is home all over again. The memories I had created along the way and knowing the men that I wanted to kiss, those were all part of home. Home was not the places that I had been but the memories that I had created along the way.

I still wanted to kiss him, but now I realized that it was just in my past. I need to path life hands me, the more interesting one, rather than try to stay along the set course, the ledge of life that I had created when I was only thirteen. That was home then. Now I’m almost twenty-five and that has to change. What I had expected home to become was something completely different.

I realize that the only way to find home now is to leave this one. I have explored the people and the places here all that I can and it really can no longer contain me. There will be other men, other paths, and other cities to explore. There will be other parks to walk through, other rivers and streams to stare at deep in thought. There will be other jobs, other careers, and other interests that will find me along the way. There will be other kisses, but I need to discover the path to them first. I need to discover home.

I Would Do Anything...

2006-10-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

...just to hear this song more often! Including watching this commercial!

Sara, Chapter 09 - The Dinner Date

2006-10-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

Title: The Dinner Date
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: first draft
Category: fiction, chapter 09 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Warnings: alcohol use
Summary: Paul meets with Robert concerning what happened at the hospital and despite promising Sophie that he would not. Backstory revealed on why he does not want to go back to the job. Paul and Robert avoid mentioning the fact that they are in the same building as Sophie. Robert has a new client.

~~~~~
09.) THE DINNER DATE

“Sorry I’m late, urgent meeting with another client,” the lawyer said as he raced across the nearly empty bar, his coat and briefcase trailing behind him. A thin layer of stale cigarette smoke hung in the air around us left over from earlier in the evening when a bachelorette party raucously besieged the bar from those of us wanting to drown our deepest sorrows and celebrations in alcohol; scattered decorations still adorned the floor.

I looked back into my whiskey and noticed the swirl or the ice melting, trying to coexist with the alcohol in the same glass; I had never heard the man speak.

“Paul, are you okay?” the lawyer asked me, putting his hand on my shoulder and briefly shaking me out of the level of thought I had descended into previously.

“Nineteen years. How can they do this after nineteen years?” I asked the lawyer, taking another sip of the whiskey and letting its burn wake me from those years of servitude to the hospital.

“I don’t know Paul, but I’m glad you called me. I’m not an expert in labor law, but I know of a few people that can help you. I can contact them for you and get the ball rolling on your case…”

“I don’t want someone else’s help, I want yours. You know me, you know my history. That’s how it works, right?” I took another sip from the whiskey, this time savoring its liquid flame, savoring the only sensation I wanted to feel right now.

“Paul, I can at least assist as the criminal charges against you in the past will more than likely come up…”

“Why would they come up? You got me off each time.”

“The hospital’s lawyers know you better than I do Paul. Even if they can’t legally use those incidents, they will find a way to use them politically. They probably already have which is why we’re here talking about this.” Robert reached into his bag and pulled out a small tape recorder that I had seen on too many occasions in the past. “Paul, tell me exactly what is going on here.”

I looked at the tape recorder and began to feel the weight of the situation on my shoulders. By telling my lawyer what was happening, I was acknowledging that the situation actually meant something to me. I watched as Robert checked the battery level and file on the tape recorder; I still couldn’t believe that this was really happening. “Are you really going to tape this?” I looked down at the recorder as my nerves began to take a stronger hold of me.

“That’s usually the case,” Robert pressed a few buttons and spoke my name and the date, “It’s all yours Paul. Lets just start with what happened today, shall we?”

“I was in my office around twelve thirty or so, finishing up some paperwork and a follow-up meeting with a patient,” I thought of Princess and knew that she would be outraged to be described in such a way, “when Claire, Dr. Frankwick’s personal assistant, came into my office and told me that he wanted to meet with me and it was urgent. I locked away the work I had out and followed her to his office where he told me that due to recent actions he and the hospital’s board of directors felt that it would be in everyone’s best interests if I were to take a week long leave of absence but without pay.”

“Who is Dr. Frankwick?” Robert asked, “it’s best to have his full name on the record for later usage. Same with Claire.”

“Luther Frankwick is the hospital administrator and the head of the board of directors. He also serves at times as head of the emergency department, which is my current designation under my contract. I don’t know Claire’s last name.”

“Continue with your statement,” Robert said coldly. When I looked over at him he was rubbing his left hand with his right hand, of which the latter had a long gash across it. I thought of the cut and bruise on Sophie’s left cheek and immediately recognized its mate. I did not want to know what sort of brute force he was capable of.

“What happened to your hand?” I asked and Robert suddenly pulled it down to his side.

“Nothing really, just cut it.”

“Let me look at it.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Well, you should have had stitches but too much time has elapsed to do so. When did this happen?”

Robert thought for a moment before answering me, “Last Thursday morning, I think,” looking me in the eye he added, “Can we get back to your statement?”

I looked at the tape recorder and felt yet another sense of dread, “Sure. Where did I leave off?”
Robert looked at his notes briefly, “Frankwick called you in, suspended you, and that’s it.”

“Well, I asked Frankwick why he wanted to do that and he told me that my performance had been slipping lately. I asked him to elaborate and he refused. I asked him again and he told me that this was his final word and that I’d get a chance to discuss it with the board on Monday at nine in the morning. Until then, I was not to be seen on hospital property without expressed invitation from a member of the hospital’s administration. I asked him to elaborate that as well and he told me to leave hospital property at that time.”

“Anything else?” Robert asked, still writing a few notes from the last part of my statement.
I thought hard, “No, that’s it.”

Robert looked over his notes again, “Paul is there anything that has happened in the last week that may have precipitated this?”

I thought about the question and swallowed hard. This last week had been a turning point in my career. I took a deep breath and answered the question, “Remember that when you’re a doctor, there are many things that can cause problems for you. There were for sure two such incidents this week, possibly a third but I’m not sure. The first happened last Wednesday night and concerned a patient who died under my care. I cannot say much about the case at this time, but the patient gave me a necklace shortly before expiring.”

“Paul, the board will want details.”

“And they’ll get the details when I’m there as they are authorized to hear those details Robert. I do not wish to get myself into more trouble.”

“Was there anything peculiar about that case?”

“Yes. Patient seemed fine and then when everyone’s backs were turned, the patient’s condition changed and was no longer stable.”

“Were you supposed to leave her alone?”

“No.”

“Was she left alone?”

“I’m not sure. I was in my office reviewing paperwork while waiting for the labs to come back. It’s typical, and my colleagues and I do that all the time. Frankwick even told me to do so early in our careers.”

“About this necklace, do you still have it?”

“Yes. The family did not ask about it.”

“Do you have the necklace with you right now?”

“Yes, I keep it with me at all times.”

“May I see it?”

I felt the cold metal of the necklace burn against my skin even more than the whiskey had been doing so far this evening. I slowly pulled the necklace out from under the collar of my sweater. I went to unhook the clasp, but it was suddenly stuck; it was as if I was not allowed to remove it at all.

“It can’t be!” Robert muttered and quickly stopped the tape recorder, staring at my neck the entire time. “There’s only supposed to be one like it. That’s what the dealer told me when I bought it for my wife a month ago. How did you get that?”

“The patient gave it to me when she was about to die. Why are you so interested in it?”

”I don’t know Paul. I was in Boston awhile back and felt compelled to go to a certain pawn shop. When I walked in there, I saw the necklace and knew I had to buy it. I gave it to my wife, but I haven’t seen it since.

“It’s probably nothing Robert, just a trinket. Can we get back to business or will you give me these last ten minutes for free?”

Robert reached down to his tape recorder, “You’re probably right, it’s nothing,” he said just before he touched the record button again, “Continue.”

“The other incident happened Thursday night. I had gone to a bar downtown known to the locals as ‘Big Eddies’.” It’s a dive bar just down the block from the hospital. No exterior markings except a red neon sign in the shape of a martini glass. I ordered my usual whiskey on the rocks but noticed that it was hitting me particularly strong that night. One of the regular customers came over to me and started talking. We argued and as she got up to leave, she sprained her ankle. I told her I was a doctor and wanted to look at it, but she told me that I had been drugged. We managed to get to the hospital, where I will assume that I lost consciousness as the next thing I remember was waking up on Friday morning. That’s when I left AMA. One of the nurses warned me that Frankwick would not like that decision when he heard about it.”
“Why would your boss be concerned about your medical records?” Robert asked, intrigued by this sudden lack of concern over patient confidentiality by the head of a hospital. This of course meant that Robert had found a possible breach of ethics on my boss’s part which meant that there was something more in my case to work with.

“To start with, he tells us that as doctors we need to set an example of health for our patients. Which means that any and all of the drinking allegations in my history will be counted against me, even though I know that he has more than I do. Second, my tox screen came back positive for several illegal street drugs. Even though we are all sworn to confidentiality, it can still be used against you when your boss is listed as your attending physician. Those are the two that I can think of right now.”

Robert looked over his notes again, “Is there anything else that may have happened as well?”

I looked back at Robert and saw the gash in his right hand again and instantly thought of Sophie. In my mind I knew that it would have been an incident that Frankwick would have wanted to add to the list, but knew that my initial experiences with my lawyer’s wife were secluded to my memories only. I thought harder and realized that there was one other thing that I needed to get on record to survive this new political circus, “Robert, the other thing about this is that I’m not sure if I even want to go back there.”

“When did you?” he reached around for his wallet, pulling out a few bills while trying to get the bartender’s attention. It wasn’t that hard as we were now the only customers left there aside from the musicians packing up for the night.

Robert was correct in asking me the question. I had never wanted to work at County General, and he needed to know it. Someone needed to know.

“Damn it Frank, what did you do, have sex with Anna this morning?” I asked my overly energetic best friend. We were on our morning jog, well his morning jog; it had been several years since I had done this. Frank had invited me to go for a run as he could something was on my mind, and it was.

“What, can’t keep up Paul?” Frank started to sprint off adding, “And you know that I probably did!” as the final coup-de-grâce for my heart.

Frank, Anna, and I were all fellows in our fields at that time, in our very last phases of training to be full, independent doctors. It was March and we were all applying for jobs at hospitals scattered around the US. Frank and Anna wanted to try to work at the same hospital, and as they often helped me with Amy and Joanna, I wanted to at least be in the same city.

I was huddled over, swearing over the fact that I was no longer able to keep up with Frank, who used to be on the track team with me in our undergraduate years back in Boston. I tried to speak, but was gasping for air as I was too far out of shape; Frank had to have been in the best shape of his life. I looked up and saw that Frank was running back to me, both annoyed and concerned that I could no longer keep up with him.

“Frank, we gotta go back!” I gasped for breath.

“In a minute,” he was now stretching, “I thought you’d be in better shape than this for being an ER doc!”

“Well, I am. I just worked overtime in a Boston emergency room for the last eight days and was on call when I wasn’t there. Give me some credit here, will ya? You try lifting unconscious bodies for that long and then having enough energy to go for a run,” I started coughing, “This is brutal Frank.”

Frank was now jogging in place, apparently trying to keep his heart rate up but obviously failing as I had just laid down on the grass in an attempt to recover more quickly from this sudden abuse I had just put my body through.
“I need to tell you something Paul.”

“That I run like a girl? You always tell me that.”

“No something else,” Frank sat down on the grass next to me, abandoning his attempt at exercise for my attempt at recovery. “Do you remember those applications we sent out to the hospitals in Chicago?”

My heart skipped a beat. I had not yet received anything from the hospitals in Chicago and wanted desperately to receive a similar letter, even though I had been offered a position in northern Minnesota. I wanted to accept that one but knew that I would be separated from the people who I considered to be my family. A job wasn’t worth that, was it?

“Well, Anna was hired by County General. They want her desperately.”

“Of course they do. She’s a better doctor than the two of us combined.”

“They’re willing to hire me as well.”

I sat up from the grass, my body having recovered enough to finally do so, and felt another wave of coughing about to overtake me. “That’s good Frank,” I managed to squeak out between coughs. “Can we head back now?”

Frank nodded in agreement, but probably more because of the weather starting to turn for the worse. By the time we got back to our apartment building, Amy and Joanna had both awoken from their naps and were now coloring with Anna. Amy, upon seeing me, grabbed her picture and ran to me, throwing her arms around me in the biggest hug she could manage as a five year old. Joanna hid her face in Anna’s side; even though she was my daughter she never had connected with me.

“Joanna, I have to get up and get something for your Daddy. Is that okay?” I saw Joanna bury herself into Anna’s side even deeper as the elder of the two tried to pry my daughter off of her. When she finally succeeded, she took an envelope off the counter near her and handed it to me. “This came for you yesterday, but you were asleep by the time I could get it to you.”

Anna handed me the envelope and I quickly noticed that it was from a hospital in Chicago, County General to be exact. I must have made some sort of a face because Frank looked up at me and started laughing. I knew what was in the envelope, or at least hoped for it. I quickly opened the letter and read the words that made my heart skip a beat for glee. The three of us would be working together again, this time, halfway across the country. I was ecstatic, but then I thought of the hours the three of us would have to pull and realized that I would never see my daughters.

Frank looked at me, “Paul, what’s wrong? Did you not get the job?”

I looked at the letter again, “No, I got it.”

“That’s excellent news Paul!” Anna hugged me and I could feel Amy do the same around my knee; Joanna gave me another shy, hurt look and went back to her coloring.

“What about Amy and Joanna? We’ll be too busy to look after them, and I don’t want them growing up in such a big city. The Minnesota hospital would be better for us.” I looked back at Joanna who I loved dearly but was also concerned about; she hadn’t spoken to me since Regina left us a year and a half ago.

“We’ll have money, we can find someone to help with them.”

I looked back at my girls, “A nanny is not the same as a parent.”

“Do you think you’d have more time if you took a job at a smaller hospital in a smaller community where you’d be maybe one of two ER doctors if you’re lucky? You’d be on call all of the time. At least this way there’s a chance to spend time with them. Or at least with us,” Frank ran over to Amy and picked her up, making her fly near the ceiling of their apartment.

Frank was right. I couldn’t be a single parent and start a career in a city away from any sort of support, and I knew that trying to find Regina would not be worth the effort.

“Paul, lets move to a corner table, there’s too much traffic around this one,” Robert pulled me suddenly from my thoughts of my friends and family; the memory of the scent of Anna’s perfume lingered momentarily in the air around me before I realized that a couple of women walked into the bar. One of them wore the same fragrance. Robert stopped the small tape recorder and I followed him across the bar to a clean table where he asked me, “Why did you take the job there if you didn’t want it?”

I shook my head, trying to pull myself from one of the last relatively happy moments with my best friends and my daughters. “I knew I needed help with my girls,” I answered Robert who I noticed was rubbing his right hand this time.

“I really should look at that Robert.”

“It’s nothing.”

“There could be damage to the nerves, tendons, or muscles. Even worse, it could be infected. I’m sure you want to keep your hand. Let me look at it.”

“I’ll just see my doctor tomorrow Paul,” and he pulled his hand back to his side. Reaching a momentary lull in our conversation, my companion added, “Why did you choose to meet here? The Marriot’s bar is too far out of the way back to your cabin, isn’t it?”

We made eye contact briefly and I could tell that he knew that his wife Sophie was upstairs; I didn’t want him to know that I knew that same fact however. “Just a change of pace tonight. Liked their band. You don’t get jazz piano like that anymore.”

Robert nodded in agreement, “That’s true, you don’t,” he answered me, however, it looked like he was distracted now.

“Why did you agree to meet with me here rather than at your office?”

“I like their martinis. They’re strong. And the women that come here are exquisite,” Robert looked over at the table full of women that I had noticed earlier. I know that I had just betrayed Sophie a bit, however, I did not wish to reveal that I knew that she was upstairs, even though I could tell that Robert knew my secret knowledge.

“Anyway, seeing that I’m paying you too much per hour, can we get back to the matter at hand?”

Robert took another sip and gathered his concentration back on why we were meeting there; my employment. I saw him dig a thick file out of his briefcase that had my name on it. Even though I knew that it was his file on me, I knew that it was also the abbreviated parts that one of his paralegals had gathered for him after I called this afternoon from my hotel room.

“Paul, how much do you want this job back?” Robert asked, paging though my long history of drinking, gambling, and money problems that had plagued me since coming to Chicago nineteen years ago. “There’s so much here that the hospital board can pull for ammunition that I don’t know where to start in your defense.”

I stopped and thought about Robert’s question and remembered Joanna’s first day at school.

Through some scheduling glitch at the hospital, Frank, Anna, and I were all scheduled to work an evening at the hospital, despite us trying to get a night off for the sake of my youngest daughter having gone through what may have been the most traumatic day of her life. I wanted at least one of us to be there for Joanna after she arrived home from her first day of kindergarten in her school just on the outskirts of Chicago but instead had to hire a babysitter.

I dropped Joanna and Amy off at their elementary school and met with their teachers. I told Joanna about school in the weeks before and though she was well prepared. When we got there, she ran into the classroom and found a few friends of hers from the apartment building we lived in. I greeted the teacher and briefly met with her; telling her about the babysitter from our building that would be picking her up at noon.

I had just gotten to work when Frankwick came up to me telling me about an urgent phone call; he was the attending physician for the emergency department at that time. I picked up the phone and on the other end of the line was the school’s principal. Joanna had apparently started a fight and bit a fellow student. I had to come out to the school and meet with my daughter’s teacher and principal.

I told Frankwick about the urgent call. Seeing that he had school aged children of his own, I had just assumed that he would let me leave for the hour or two that it would take to meet with the teachers. To my surprise, he told me that I could not go.

“It is not a doctor’s place to tend to young children. Where’s their mother?”

“Probably Las Vegas or something.”

“Who watches them?”

“Frank, Anna, and I.”

“You’re all here right now. Anna is with one of your patients and Frank is upstairs.”

“So they obviously cannot attend to this. Who watches them when you can’t?”

“A sitter who lives in our building. Look Dr. Frankwick, it’s my daughter’s first day of school, there was an incident, and she needs her father, not a substitute parent.”

Frankwick looked at me with bitter eyes. “I’ll let you go on one condition, you get Anna to go out with me this Friday. Frank’s on call upstairs in psych so he’ll be too busy with that to notice.”

Just as Frankwick was telling me this, I saw Anna round the corner with an unknowing smile on her face. “I can’t,” I told Frankwick. The welfare of my best friends’ marriage meant more to me than my boss’s personal life. Too bad I didn’t know what would come of that moment. It was that moment that later killed Frank and Anna both.

I did manage to get time off to go to the school, where I saw Joanna sitting on a little red bench in the office with her backpack neatly sitting next to her. She was staring at a family picture that sat on a secretary’s desk across from her. In that picture was a girl her age, a boy about a year older, and the mother and father of those children. I looked closer at Joanna and could see that she had been crying.

“Joanna?” I gently called out as I sat on the bench next to me. She gave me a scornful look in reply.

“Joanna, your principal Mrs. Laughlin called me at work. Do you want to talk about what happened?”

She gave me another angry stare.

Just as I was about to try to give her a hug, a woman in a red skirt called my name, “Dr. Millard? I’m Barb Laughlin, we spoke on the phone. This way to my office. Joanna, can you wait a moment while I talk with your dad?”

I looked down at Joanna who gave me another heated look and then looked at the principal and followed her into her office. Seeing my daughter not respond to her principal made me worry even more.

“Dr. Millard, we spoke briefly on the phone and I cannot stress how important it is that you came. This is Stephanie Andrews, our school’s guidance counselor. Melanie Johnson, your daughter’s teacher will be joining us soon.” I greeted the guidance counselor and Mrs. Laughlin spoke again. “We’re concerned about Joanna’s well-being. As you know it is the first day of school, and even though first day jitters are normal, neither of us have seen anything like this.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled patiently. I did not want to hear what I knew I was about to hear.

“Dr. Millard,” this time Ms. Andrews was talking, “the class was in sharing time, which is the time of the day when they go around in a circle and talk about a specific subject. Today it was a get to know you subject, so each child was asked to say his or her name and tell us what their parents did for work. When it came to Joanna’s turn, she refused to talk. Mrs. Johnson told me she had just written it off as jitters but wanted to keep watching her. Your daughter didn’t say a word all morning until another girl started talking about how much she liked her father, who is also a doctor. Mrs. Johnson told us that Joanna ran across the room, slapped the other girl, and yelled the following, ‘I hate doctors, my daddy’s a doctor, and I hate him’.”

My heart skipped a beat when I heard that. I had known for a while that Joanna had been angry with me, but I did not know to what extent that emotion had risen. My own daughter, whom I would have given the world for, hated me. Had I known about the rest of her life at that point, I would have quit my job immediately and started applying for something with fewer hours. However, I told myself that what I was doing was for the good of my girls, and besides, Frank and Anna were always there for them as much as I was.

“Dr. Millard, there’s more however,” Mrs. Laughlin continued from that point, “the girl your daughter confronted spoke in defense of her father. This made your daughter even more upset and she started hitting the other girl. At some point, Joanna took the girl’s arm and bit her.”

I cringed when I heard those words. I had taught her from early on not to be violent, and even more, the dangers of putting things in your mouth. I thought that Frank, Anna, and I had gotten the message through to her that it was wrong to bite someone, especially out of anger, but I had been wrong. “Is the other girl okay?” I heard myself ask, the doctor in me trying to take over.

“Yes, her mother came and picked her up shortly before you came. She’ll be okay, but we’re more concerned about Joanna.”

Ms. Andrews spoke up, “While it still occasionally happens, Joanna should be past the stage of biting other children, this and her quote ‘hatred’ of you and doctors has us concerned. Has she acted any differently at home? We notice that you’re a single parent, which must be a difficult role.”

“Joanna is in kindergarten, it’s her first day of school, and she misses her family. Yes my wife left me two years ago, but my daughters, both Joanna and Amy, whom I have been told is a model student by her teacher back in Boston, are in a loving and caring environment. Her family and I helped prepare her for today. I understand your concern as if this was a child in the ER I would be just as concerned as the three of you. Thank you for calling me, however, this is something that I feel could have been dealt with differently.”

“Dr. Millard, we feel that it would be best if you take Joanna home with you for the day,” Mrs. Johnson commented.

“Why? So she can think about what she did wrong? She’s five! Let her go back to class and meet the other kids there.” I looked out at my youngest daughter sitting out on the bench, now watching a classroom full of kids walk past the office door, mocking her for being in there. “You’re concerned about her social skills and so am I. Let her go back to class and socialize. It’s that simple. If something like this happens again, call me. But until then, don’t assume there’s something wrong.” I stood up and left the principal’s office.

“Joanna dear, I’m going to take you back to class now. Do you want to show me where it is?” I picked up her backpack and offered her my hand.

She looked up at me briefly with another scorned look. When she looked down she took my hand and led me to the classroom where I told her to be a good girl and that we’d talk later that night. She even let me hug her. That was the closest we had ever gotten in her life so far, in my life even. When she left for college and I said goodbye, I did not know that she would never return to me. I have not heard from her since and the bills from her university stopped coming long ago. I hate to assume the worst, but I blame myself for her leaving me. If it were not for my dream of becoming a doctor, I would have never lost my wife and then my youngest daughter.

I looked across the table at Robert and thought of Joanna. It was because of this job that I lost her. It was because of this job that I lost Frank and Anna. It was because of this job that I lost the only real love of my life, Regina. “Robert,” I reflected, “I don’t want to return.”

“Are you sure about this Paul?” he asked, his body stopping any motion it had intended on fulfilling when it heard those words. “If you give up this fight right now Paul you will essentially be telling the board and Frankwick that you are guilty of anything and everything that they are claiming you are guilty of.”

I looked into my now empty glass of whiskey and motioned for the waitress or bartender, thinking about what I was actually doing. “Robert, everything I’ve ever had in my life has gone into that job. If something couldn’t work into my schedule, I pushed it away for something later. It was a miracle that I had stayed such good friends with Frank and Anna, and it was only because of the fact that they had the exact same type of schedule as me. Frankwick was right ages ago when he told me that you can’t be a doctor and a father at the same time; look what it did to me,” I held my arms out for Robert to look at me, see the loneliness in my eyes, and realize that I had nothing left in my life.

“If you didn’t want to fight for your job, why did you call me?”

“I had to. A friend made me promise to do so.”

Robert took another sip of his drink and considered my words. “Since when do you socialize, other than with your lawyer when something bad happens?”

The bartender had refilled my whiskey and it now sat in front of me. I’m surprised that he didn’t just leave the bottle instead as I was sure that I had already consumed at least five other glasses of the substance. I took a sip and felt the burning relief down my throat again and thought of the answer to Robert’s question, which involved his wife upstairs. “I ran into someone at a bar last week who insisted on finding her way into my life.”

“That could be a good thing for you, bad for me as it would probably mean less DWIs.”

“She found me again as I was leaving the hospital to go home. She managed to find out what happened and insisted that I take a hotel room rather than go home.” I thought of Princess and in my anger, downed the rest of the glass of whiskey; I coughed when I almost choked on the burning sensation. “I can assure you that she is only trouble though, so it would keep you employed.”

“Then keep seeing her.”

“She’s a homeless drug addict.”

“A new personal low Paul, I’m impressed and I’m sure that Frankwick would be as well if he knew that.”

“Can we get back to my employment?”

Robert looked back through the case file in his hands, occasionally glancing at his legal pad filled with notes on what was happening. “Could there have been anything else in the past nineteen years that could have made Frankwick prejudiced against you?”

I thought back to Joanna’s first day of school, and the comment that my boss had made that at the time I had taken as a joke. Even though it was the first time that I heard a comment of such nature from my boss, it would certainly not be the last.

“Paul, I’m worried. I saw Anna and Frankwick in the cafeteria together yesterday.” I looked up from my dictations and saw Frank standing in my office door. He was the last of the three of us to make department head, and along with enjoying his new office on the administrative floor, he was now enjoying all of the worry of being closer to his boss; Frank’s office was immediately across the hallway from the main administrative suite.

“Frank, it’s nothing. You’ve seen me with Anna in the cafeteria and it hasn’t worried you.”

Frank wandered in and sat in one of the chairs across from me, making sure to grunt as he threw his feet on top of a pile of paperwork. “It’s not you that I’m worried about, it’s Frankwick. There’s something about him that I don’t trust.”

“Maybe because he was hitting on Anna at the last Christmas party? Get your feet off my desk Frank, it’s bad enough Anna has to clean up after you, now I do to?”

Frank put his feet back on the floor and I could see bits of dust and grime left on the files, my personal pet peeve. “Paul, that makes me more worried about it.”

“He’s a grown man who is married and knows that you and Anna are as well,” I signed my signature on another chart. “Besides, if I were you I’d me more worried about me taking Anna away from you. She’s practically raised my own children, one of which no longer recognizes me as family. Relax. Envy me instead of our boss. You know it’s not worth it.”

Frank looked at me and pulled a small ball from his pocket and was now spinning it around in his hands. “You’re probably right Paul. I’ll see you tonight. We’re still on for tennis, right?”

I had felt my gut wrench at those words, Frank was relentless with a tennis racket, and always made sure that I knew it, “I have to work late tonight. Maybe this weekend.”

“Sure thing. Anna’s making spaghetti tonight and I know it’s Amy’s favorite.”

“We’ll come by for that. See you then.”

Frank left my office door open and a few minutes later the quiet peace of typing from a few secretaries and the drone of my voice into a tape recorder was broken by a gentle knock on my door. I looked up and saw Anna standing in front of me.

“Paul, I don’t know where to go, but I need your help I think.”

I looked more closely at Anna and could see that she had been crying. I got up from my desk and guided her to a chair, closing the door behind us so that no one could hear our conversation. I reached onto my desk and pulled a tissue for her, “Anna, what happened?”

She took the tissue from me and dabbed her eye gently, “I don’t know where to go with this Paul. Yesterday, I was in the cafeteria getting lunch, Frank was going to meet me, when Frankwick came up beside me. He was nice and everything, just as he always is to me, but it was different yesterday. He was more aggressive. He paid for my lunch and then invited me up to his office to eat with him. I declined. He then told me that if I valued my job, that I would go upstairs with him.”

I thought back to what Frank had told me moments before. How could I have been such a fool? I had assured my best friend that there was nothing going on between his wife and the hospital administrator when in fact his own wife was a victim of our boss. “Anna, we need to tell someone about this, they can help us.”

“We can’t tell Frank, promise me that Paul!” Anna was crying now and I put my arms around her to comfort her. Even though I could easily distance myself when telling someone that their loved one had died, I quickly found that this was different. I wanted to run into Frankwick’s office and just start fighting with him. I wanted to tell Frank so that we could both do the same together against our boss. My own primal instincts wanted to take over and physically fight this but I would not let them, I couldn’t for Anna’s sake.

“Anna we have to tell someone.”

“Why?”

“Frankwick’s been after you since we first arrived. That first September that we were here, the day that Joanna had gotten in trouble at school. Do you remember that day?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed hard. I knew I had to tell her what I knew about our boss, but I did not wish to hurt her. Maybe I had hurt her by not telling her though. Had she known about this years ago she could have protected herself. “Anna, that was the day Frankwick first told me that he wanted to go on a date with you.”

“No.” Anna refused to believe me.

“Anna, we need to talk to HR…”

“They’re just Frankwick’s puppets.”

“We need to call a lawyer…”

“Frank would find out.”

“Can we at least tell Frank?”

Anna looked into my eyes and began to cry even more. She loved her husband deeply and never wanted to betray him. She knew that by telling Frank about this she was not only putting her career on the line but her husband’s well-being as well. There was a knock on the door. I went to answer it and saw Frank on the other side.

“Paul, I can’t find Anna and I’m worried.”

“She’s in here with me; can you give me a moment?”

“After the speech you gave me earlier, can I trust you alone with my wife?”

I looked over at Anna who was drying her face now; her make-up had run and mascara had dappled her cheeks. Some of that same mascara was on the shoulder of my lab coat and was sure that Frank had already noticed.

“Paul, why is my wife alone with you in my office?” I could not tell if my best friend was joking with me or threatening me. Either way I was in trouble.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and realized that Anna stood in the doorway between Frank and me. I looked over and saw Anna reach around and put her arms around her husband’s frame. “Frankwick has been trying to seduce me ever since we were hired here.”

Frank hugged Anna and told her to stay in my office for the next several minutes. She turned around and sat back in the chair where she had been briefly before. I looked down the hallway and saw Frank run into the administrative suite and heard him yell at Frankwick. I then heard glass breaking, screams from the secretaries, and then Frankwick and my best friend yelling at each other. I looked over at Anna who was crying again. I quickly closed my door and hugged her. If Frank was too hot-headed to protect his wife, then I was at least capable of doing so for now. We stayed in there for several minutes after the floor had gone silent; the only sounds were of Anna’s soft sobs into the collar of my lab coat.

“Paul, you don’t sit for five minutes at a bar with a high priced defense attorney just staring at the wall,” Robert shook me once again from my memories. I had to learn to lay off the liquor when I was facing a midlife crisis; it seemed to make me relive my past. “Have you at least thought about what I asked? Was there something that made Frankwick prejudiced against you?”

“Yes, he was seducing my best friend’s wife who did not wish that upon herself.”

Robert stopped for a moment, almost in shock over the revelation of what I had just said. If he could prove this, posthumously of course as Anna could no longer testify for herself, then it meant that my job would not only be spared, but Frankwick would have to face the wrath of his own board of directors.

“We have an excellent case Paul. My recommendation for you is to fight this tooth and nail, win it, and if you still want to quit after that, wait two weeks and do so. Make sure to get the best severance package you can. It’s your only real choice here.”

“Okay, so what happens now?”

Robert looked back over his notes. “I’ll call up a labor lawyer tomorrow and discuss your case with him. Meantime, I want you to come up with an official timeline of events that they may use against you as well as a formal apology letter and a formal letter of resignation. You may need all of them.” He looked at his watch and began to place my file and notes back into his bag, having long ago stopped his tape recorder, “I’m late for another meeting.”

“It’s eleven thirty at night Robert, who could you be meeting?”

“I’m keeping longer hours now. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Robert walked out of the bar but did not bother to put on his coat. Somehow during the entire meeting neither of us had mentioned Sophie, aside from the cut on Robert’s hand, but I knew that he was referring to her in place of the other client, and I knew that is why he never bothered to put on his coat.

I walked over to the bar and asked the bartender for the remainder of the bottle of whiskey, placing a twenty on the bar in front of him as payment and a tip. Tonight would be a long night, and I desperately needed to be drunk to get through this.

Sara, Chapter 08 - The Lunch Meeting

2006-09-25T18:21:00.000-07:00

Title: The Lunch Meeting
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: first draft
Category: fiction, chapter 08 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Warnings: sexual harassment, selling of drugs
Summary: Sophie and Princess discover that something bad has happened to Paul, an old enemy returns to Princess's life at a bad time, Sophie tells Princess something important and damaging about her relationship with Robert, and Paul tells Sophie and Princess what really happened.

~~~~~

08.) THE LUNCH MEETING

Twenty dollars. Twenty whole dollars! An almost perfect stranger just handed me a whole twenty dollars to buy us lunch! I know that this was not the first time that I held so much money; I could earn it easily enough doing things that I did not prefer to do but had to. Yet, this was different somehow. I had been trusted by someone so far above me in status to do this menial task. No one had ever done this for me before in my life except my first social worker.

The elevator door opened to the lobby of the ER and I was still staring oat the money in awe. I didn’t know why it was so intriguing, other than the fact that it had been trusted to me. Or maybe it was because it was given to me for something as innocent as a conversation over lunch.

“Princess!” a woman called out from the waiting room; Sophie sat reading a magazine with one hand, the other was in a light-blue cast with pins on either side of it. I ran over to her, just barely avoiding a scolding from a nurse, and sat down in the chair next to her.

“What are you doing here? I would have thought that you have had enough of this place already.”

“Kristin is a clutz.”

“Oh no, what did she do this time?”

“Burned her hand preparing the soup for lunch there at St. A’s.”

“You didn’t drive I hope, with one working hand and all.”

“Princess, you can still drive with one hand, although you have to be a little more careful. Besides, Brandon was already helping her with her hand and the first aid kit. He’s in the room now with her. They’ve been dating for awhile now, some of us are taking bets on when and how he’ll propose to her.”

I laughed, leave it to the crew at St Anthony’s to come up with such a thing, although I had already placed five on it being done right there in the kitchen on Valentine’s day. “They’re perfect for each other and their heart is in the right place with the center.”

“Kristin mentioned that she’d want to have the wedding right in the chapel onsite there. Anyway, what are you doing here?”

I felt the money in my pocket, thinking about what I wanted to buy with it for lunch. It had been too long since I last had a choice in what food I would eat next. “I’m actually meeting Paul for lunch. Do you want to join us?”

“I should wait for Kristen and Brandon,” Sophie looked at the clock on the wall, “They’ve already been in there awhile.”

I looked up at the clock as well, knowing very well that they’d be in there even longer, seeing as it was lunch time, the ER was completely full, and Paul was still upstairs tending to the files he had with him when we went upstairs. “Are you sure you don’t want to come as well? You’re missing lunch by being here.”

“Princess, I’d be missing lunch if I were at the center. You know I usually skip it…”

“And I know that you’re crazy in doing so. I’ll tell the nurse to pass the message on to the two of them what room is she in?”

“It sounded like Curtain Three.”

“I’ll be right back, and then we can go.” I walked over to the nurse’s station and fished a few more suckers out of my pocket; Gloria was standing there and had handed her last one to someone else.

“Hi there Princess, any chance of some more of those suckers? My nurses seem to love them.”

“Actually Gloria, here,” I handed her another handful of the candies and she smiled.

“My nurses keep stealing them from me, oh well, that’s what they’re really there for. You should have seen one of the interns jump with glee. Actually, not as gleeful as Paul would be. Good thing he didn’t get a hold of any or he’d be hiding from us for sure.”

I laughed at the image of seeing Paul holed up in an exam room with a stash of candy, keeping it all from the nurses and patients. As amusing as the image was, I knew that it wasn’t what Gloria was imagining and in actuality, what would really happen. Paul would get a hold of them, go to his hiding spot, and probably sleep and complain about the fact that the artificial color stained his tongue.

“Princess, you wouldn’t have happened to have seen him, would you?”
I looked at my watch, “I left his office about fifteen minutes ago, he said he would be meeting me for lunch. He even gave me money to buy him…”

“A cheeseburger? That’s what he always gets. Usually on my dollar as well. Don’t know what you did but it sounds like you may have cheered him up a bit. He only buys lunch when he’s in a good mood.”

“That’s good to hear Gloria. Actually, a friend of mine will be joining us and I was wondering if you could relay a message from her to a patient of yours.”

Gloria signed a sheet of paper in front of her, “Sure Princess. What is it?”

“Could you let a Kristin in Curtain Three and her boyfriend Brandon know to meet Sophie and me in the cafeteria when they get out? They’re missing lunch as well and are welcome to join us. So are you if you can get off.”

“I can pass on the message for you but I’m afraid I can’t get off yet; I’m covering for one of the other nurses right now. Paul’s actually meeting you for lunch?” Gloria asked as if it were a rare event to witness, as rare as pigs flying.

I looked at my watch again and time was flying fast. “He’s supposed to,” I looked back up at the clock, another five minutes had passed since I stepped foot back on the elevator, “Is he usually this late for things?”

“Not usually. When it comes to food or cigarettes he’s right on time if not early. I can’t say why he’s running late.”

“Thanks Gloria.”

I started to walk away but Gloria’s voice caught my ear, “Princess, could you tell Paul that Frankwick wants to see him? It sounded important and he’s called down here several times.”

“Who’s Frankwick?”

“Our rather angry boss right now. Anyway, I need to get back to work. I’ll pass on your message and you’ll pass on mine.”

“Thanks Gloria.” I walked over to Sophie and motioned for her to follow me.

We walked into the cafeteria and got our food and a cheeseburger, chips, and soda for Paul who would be getting three dollars and eighty-seven cents back from his twenty. We sat down at a booth in the corner, great for people watching, and began to tear away at our food, actually finding it satisfying for once.

“I need to know Sophie. What has Robert done since Friday?”

She wiped the mustard off her chin; eating with one hand was a lot harder than it looked. “Well, you saw my mother and sister on Friday, and we all have a hotel room together at the Marriot. They’ll both be here for the next two weeks. It’s good to be back with them again.”

I took a big bite from my fries, “What do you mean Sophie?”

“Princess, I haven’t told you this, and I haven’t really told anyone this so do not be offended, but I haven’t seen or heard from anyone in my family since I moved to Chicago three years ago.”

“What? What did Robert do to you?”

“He thought that if I had contact with them that I’d be happier. I wasn’t. I missed them more than he missed his family, which was a lot.”

“Let me get this straight, you came to Chicago for a teacher’s convention, met Robert in a bar, and within a week was living with him and not talking with your family?”

Sophie nodded as she drank her soda, “Something like that. We got married at the courthouse, so there was no need for a full wedding. A couple of public defenders Robert knew served as witnesses so my family never really knew about the wedding, even though they knew Robert back when I was in college. But he’s become so different now from when we were back in Boston. He’s completely changed.”

“So this all started after you married him?”

“Pretty much. I never saw it coming. He was so sweet.”

“You talk as if he’s out of your life permanently.”

“He might be, I haven’t’ decided yet. Isn’t Paul supposed to have joined us by now? His food is getting cold?”

“It’s been three years since you last saw your family and you’re here at a hospital waiting to have cafeteria food with the doctor who was your roommate after you were in a car accident. Sometimes I don’t understand you Sophie.”

But Sophie was onto something. It had now been thirty minutes since I left Paul’s office upstairs and was greatly worried about what was happening. I momentarily excused myself to go find him when he suddenly walked into the cafeteria, a grim look on his face. I waved him over to us and he quickly made his way over as if he was in the middle of a medical crisis with a patient.

“Paul, here’s your change and here’s your lunch,” I pushed a tray that I had covered in a few napkins to keep the food warm over to him, “Hope you like pickles.”

He sat down and took the money from me, just barely acknowledging Sophie who was sitting between us in the booth. “Actually, I was wondering if we could go out for awhile. The three of us, I’ll treat. There’s a place down the road I can take us to.”

“I have my car here, is it okay if I drive?” Sophie asked casually, not sensing what might be going on all of a sudden.

“Actually, I’d like to. Follow me.” Sophie looked in my direction, trying to ask what was going on.

“Paul, are you okay? You seem nervous.” I asked as Paul was jittery, suddenly acting on impulse. His food lay untouched on the still-covered tray on the table behind us; Sophie had apparently not heard his comment.

“I’ll tell you in my car,” he kept walking, almost running ahead of us; his knowledge of the hospital’s layout clear to all of us at the present moment.

“What is this all about?” I tried to keep up with him but found that he was much farther ahead and did not hear my question.

“What’s going on Princess?” Sophie asked from just behind me.

“I don’t know, but I think we’re gonna find out pretty soon.”

We ran to catch up to Paul who was just unlocking his car and about to get in when Gloria ran out after us.

“Paul, where are you going? You have a department to run!” Gloria yelled from across the parking lot, not quite knowing what was going on either. “You have patients!”

“Not this week Gloria! I’m on an unpaid leave of absence.” Paul yelled to Gloria, Sophie looked at me and we quickened our pace to his car.

“Paul, are you sure you can drive?” Sophie asked, trying to place her hand on his shoulder to help calm him down.

“Paul, I think you should let Sophie drive,” I said to him from the passenger side of his front seat. The news of what had just happened had us all worried.

Paul slammed his hand down onto the steering wheel, the blast of the horn momentarily deafening us all from the blast of swearwords that were spewing from his lips. “Nineteen years I’ve spent wasting my life here and for what? The neighborhood gets worse, the hospital ages, but the emergency department actually improves and not because of the number of patients seen here daily. All this time and effort dedicated to something that in the end just gets blown aside like last week’s garbage. I’m done, it’s over, I quit.”

I looked back over at Sophie who had now managed to get Paul out of the driver’s seat and was starting to lead him to her car; she motioned for me to follow. “Paul, I think you should see a lawyer, it sound’s like you have a pretty good case here,” Sophie tried to calm down Paul.

“No, it’s not worth it. I just want it to end.”

“No you don’t Paul,” I tried to reassure him.

“Look at this! I barely know either of you and here you are, witnessing the final act of my midlife crisis. Both of you go.”

“No, come on Paul, let’s get you somewhere where you can change, get something to eat, and just calm down a bit,” Sophie had, in her mind, become a teacher again momentarily and was trying to settle down her student who was panicking.

“No, just leave me be. It all started with that damned necklace. Here,” he ripped the metal from his neck and handed it to me.

“I can’t take it Paul. Fate or something has intended for you to have it and not me. That’s why you received it before my grandmother could find me. Keep it as it’s yours now.” I handed the necklace back to him as Sophie managed to get him into the passenger seat of her SUV. “Paul, is there anything you’d like from your office before we leave? Files or other items?” I looked at him again, “Or maybe your coat. It’s too cold to be out here without one, and your lab coat looks too thin.”

Sophie looked at me, “Princess, talk to that nurse that came out, I’ve got Paul.” She started at calming him down a bit, his temper was raging something fierce but I figured that she had seen worse. I ran back into the hospital and found Gloria back at the nurse’s station who was paging for off-duty ER doctors to respond to cover the remainder of Paul’s shift.

“Gloria!” I yelled and ran back towards her.

“Is Paul alright?”

“I don’t know. What happened?”

“I don’t know myself; I was hoping you could tell me.” I looked around trying to find anything that Paul might have wanted to take back with him for the week, but as I did not know him enough, I did not know what to look for.

“All I know Princess is that Frankwick, the hospital administrator has been after him ever since they got rid of his two best friends a year and a half ago. They started in after him even harder just after their deaths. This has been politics that have been in the making for a long time, and he’s lucky this is all he’s gotten so far, because knowing his boss, it is only going to get worse. Here comes Frankwick now.” Gloria suddenly tried to look busy, going over lists of doctors.

“Gloria, I assume you’ve contacted the reserve doctors already?” an aged man with a permanent scowl on his face calmly looked down and Gloria and ordered.

“I already did Doctor and Gregory is on his way in.”

“Good. Take care of this one here while you’re at it,” he suddenly looked down at me and handed an admitting form to Gloria who took the form and handed it to me. “I’ll be here with your department for the week. See that everything stays as normal as possible.”

“I’ll help you fill this out ma’am as you cannot read,” Gloria motioned for me to follow her sudden lead in this ploy against her boss. I followed her to an empty exam room.

“What’s going on Gloria?” I had asked again.

“I don’t know, but knowing that Frankwick is down here for the week has me worried. Tell Paul to get a good lawyer, he may need it if he wishes to return here. I don’t think this is the end of the politics for him just yet,” Gloria threw the form into the hazardous waste bin near the door.

“Gloria. I came in to get Paul’s coat and anything else he might need. Do you have any idea where those things are?”

“Sure. His coat is on that gurney there. This is the resident’s room where he spends most of his time when he’s not treating patients. Matter of fact, I haven’t seen him go upstairs voluntarily for a long time before today.”

I grabbed his coat from the gurney, “Gloria, is there anything else he might need?”

The nurse stood in thought for a moment, “Now that you mention it. That stack of files that he had with him when you got here this morning. Do you know where it is?”

I thought for a moment, “He took it with him upstairs to his office.”

“One of the files in that stack is his from Thursday night when you both came in. I saw it and I don’t think he wants Frankwick to see it. Paul has the only key for the desk drawer he would have locked it in, I’ll go get it, just wait here.”

“He’s not taking his car, we wouldn’t let him drive. He’ll be by a taupe Lexus SUV with a dent in the driver’s side door.”

Gloria ran out of the room, taking Paul’s coat with her, and I assumed that she would have tried to find a way to avoid the hospital administrator who had just made this department his newest hobby aside from trying to find a way to get rid of my doctor friend. I hid in the room as quietly as possible and a few minutes later Gloria returned with the key. “Your friend is going to take him to the Five O’Clock Café just across the street for now. I’ll get the items you’ll need for Paul from his office including his file.” After another few minutes and a few odd glances from young doctors wandering in and out of the room, Gloria returned with an attaché case with the initials “PM” embroidered in black on it.

“Here Princess. Not much is in there, but it’s what I could find in the time I had up there. The files he was working on are in there along with his mini-tape recorder, which he’d want. I’ve been after him about those dictations for a good couple of weeks now,” Gloria handed me the rather heavy bag and I threw it over my shoulder. “Could you give him a message word for word?”

I nodded.

“Tell him that we’re all pulling for him and we’ll mutiny from Frankwick the moment he tells us so.”

“Thanks Gloria,” I said to the nurse and hurried out of the room, also hoping to avoid this Frankwick character I had seen earlier. I was afraid to find out what would happen to any of us if this doctor knew that I was leaving hospital property with Paul’s attaché and department’s files. As I left the hospital, thankfully undetected, though Frankwick was slowly pacing the length of the nurse’s station, I found the Five O’Clock Café quickly and Sophie’s dented SUV parked right in front. I do not know why she didn’t just make him walk across the street.

“Sugar! What are you doing down this far? This isn’t your block.” I turned around quickly and saw one of the regulars from Big Eddie’s walking towards me, a rather snide smile on his face. I never much cared for him, but I often let him do what he wanted as he tipped me well for my time. Today however, I did not want to see him. I tried to pretend not to see him, but it was hard seeing that he was the only person on the street at the time and running towards me at full force. Ever since discovering the power of the necklace, I found that I did not need him anymore. I could be satisfied with what was around me rather than trying to enhance my life with drugs or alcohol.

“Hi, what do you want Cole?” I asked, trying to keep it neutral.

“Well, I haven’t seen you lately and I was getting lonely down in my little corner…”

“Forget it Cole. I’m clean now.”

“How long? One week? You’ll come back, you always have.”

“It’s different this time, I don’t need it anymore.”

Cole reached his arm around me and tried to slip something into my mouth. “Cole, stop it!” I yelled and tried to push him away. I could see that our sudden action had gotten Paul’s attention from the restaurant window; he stood up suddenly and kept staring in my direction. “Cole, stop. They can see in the restaurant.”

“So what? You’ve always liked this in the past Sugar.”

“No, I didn’t. I used you for what I wanted just as I let you use me for the same. Forget it.”

“So you find religion and I’m not good enough for you anymore?” he looked over at the restaurant and apparently saw Paul still standing in the window staring at us, “Or am I not as good as your new boyfriend the doctor?” he leaned in and squeezed me tight and kissed me on the cheek as I fought to get out of his grip, hitting him on his arms and kicking him at the same time.

“Let me go Cole!” I looked back up to the window where I now saw Paul staring at a cup of coffee and Sophie sitting across from him. “ Just let me go.”

Cole released me and pushed me away from him. “Fine Sugar, just remember where not to go when you need something next time.”

I quickly gathered up the things that had fallen onto the pavement including Paul’s case and my jacket and ran across the road to the restaurant. I walked in and quickly found Sophie and Paul in the corner booth where I had seen them from outside. I brought the attaché case to him and told him Gloria’s message. I wanted to ignore what had just happened and hoped he would do the same.

“Leave it to my department to find a way to imitate a pirate’s ship,” he said as he smiled a little. “Problem is, figuring out which of my personnel with mutiny against me and how quickly.” Sophie gave me a look and pushed the ice-cream back at Paul.

“So what do we do now?” I asked, hoping that someone could tell me what was happening.

“Paul’s going to find a good lawyer, and not my good-for-nothing husband. I don’t know what to do with him for the night. I tried to convince him to take a room at the Marriot near mine, but he insists on going to his house and driving himself there on his own.”

I looked at Paul who was just staring out of the window, a cup of coffee quickly turning ice cold and a menu sitting closed at its side. “Who was that man?” he asked, his finger making a figure-eight on the table in front of him and still staring out the window where Cole was standing, now trying to sell drugs to a young child who was clearly scared of what was going on.

“Just someone from my past. Nothing really,” I tried to skirt the issue.

“He shouldn’t have touched you like that. It just leads to worse things.”

“I know Paul. I told him that I didn’t need him anymore.”

“That might not have been a good idea. I’ve seen what those thugs can do to people; I get stuck trying to suture up their messes. Next time give him a little of what he wants and walk away the first chance you get.”

“Paul, if I had done that I wouldn’t be in here right now. I’d be in his apartment and shooting myself up. He was my drug dealer.”

There was silence at the table from the three of us as Sophie and Paul looked out the window to the kid who gave into Cole’s temptations and bought a small bag of what was presumably marijuana. I wish I could go out there and tell the kid what he was doing and what his future would amount to, but I knew Cole was still watching from a distance, he always made sure to watch after the first sale to a child.

Not wanting to see anymore of an eight year old giving his life away to nothing, and not wanting to endure the silent stares that I was sure Sophie and Paul were giving at that moment, I broke the silence, “So, what are we going to do now? Paul’s on an unpaid leave, Sophie is living out of a hotel room, and I have a drug-dealing stalker on my hands.”

I looked at my two friends sitting there, both staring into space. What exactly would we do? It wasn’t as if we could really help each other, could we? We each had our own problems that we needed to devote our time to. We each had our own solutions that we had to find on our own. Could we all really rely on each other to find the things we needed? Family?

Trying to get back to our task at hand and not stare at the sins of the street, I found myself wanting to change our conversation. “Paul, what exactly happened?”

He sighed and looked from the street and back at us; I had suspected he was actually looking across to the hospital but did not want us to know. He swallowed hard and I could tell that part of him did not want to talk about the subject.

“Paul, if you tell us it will be easier for you,” Sophie whispered and pushed Paul’s coffee towards him.

“I was place on a week’s unpaid leave of absence and I find out next Monday after a disciplinary hearing with the board of directors if I can return. I have all these thoughts running through my head, but ironically, the one thought I’m thinking the most is, ‘I’m free’.”

“Don’t you want your job back though Paul? You’ve worked your entire life for this?” I asked slowly pulling the menu away from him.

“Not really,” Paul smiled and took a sip from his coffee, “I only stayed there because I didn’t know what I wanted to do.”

“What do you want to do? I think it’s something you need to know before anything else,” Sophie added, pulling the menu away from my hands and putting it on the counter behind her. Neither of us had really started lunch when we were pulled into this circus by Paul. “Besides, it’s a question any lawyer is going to ask when you tell them that you suddenly ‘feel free.’ You need to think.”

“What I need is to go home and sleep this off.”

“In other words, run away from your problems?” Sophie asked.

“No. I plan to take the night, enjoy the possibility of freedom, and then call up my lawyer.” Paul took another sip of his coffee, beginning to relax into the realization that if he didn’t want to return to the hospital as an employee, he didn’t have to. He was starting to be happy for the first time in probably a very long time.

Paul started to get up just as Sophie saw Cole outside the restaurant again, watching us. “Paul, what about Princess. If she goes to St. Anthony’s, that guy will still find her.”

“She can have the hotel room you offered to me. It’s that simple. Look, I just want to go home and relax for awhile. I’ll call my lawyer and everything will work itself out in the end. Don’t worry about me.” Paul finished his coffee.

“For how long? That creep will be here longer than you will. She needs something more permanent than just a hotel room.”

“She needs St. Anthony’s.”

“She needs to go with you, or don’t you trust her enough after she brought you to the hospital…”

“Which caused part of what happened today.”

“She came to look check on you today and twice on Friday…”

“Didn’t need it.”

“And now it was her idea to bring you your things from your office. I wouldn’t have thought of those things myself. Princess meanwhile is looking out for your well-being. That has to mean something to you.”

Paul grunted and looked into the bottom of his empty coffee cup signaling that he wanted the argument to end.

“Sophie, Paul, I’m sitting right here. Just ask me what I want.”

“Sorry Princess. What do you think would work?”

That’s what I loved about my friendship with Sophie, she could argue a point for me and then let me finish it for her with what I wanted. “I think that I should go with Paul to his home to make sure he’s okay for the night.” Paul almost gagged on the refill of coffee the waitress had just brought him. I didn’t know if it was because the beverage was too hot or from what I had just said. “More than likely Paul won’t go to see his lawyer at all, let alone eat or do anything for himself this week other than sleep. This way I can make sure he takes care of himself and he can make sure that Cole cannot stalk me. Meanwhile, Sophie, maybe you can get Paul the name of a good lawyer.”

“That won’t work.” Paul muttered, trying not to burn his mouth on the coffee again.

“Why not?” Sophie asked, staring at him in the process.

“I just can’t take a homeless woman home with me. It’s not practical.”

“Paul. She saved your life.”

“It’s still not practical.”

Sophie thought for a moment, “You’re right Paul. But we need to keep an eye on you anyway. Either Princess goes home with you or you come to the hotel with us. Your choice.”
Paul looked into his coffee again and began to swirl a coffee-stirrer in the viscous liquid. “Hotel,” he reluctantly muttered. “I’ll ask the lawyer to come meet me there.”

We all got up and went to our separate vehicles. Sophie and I shared her SUV while Paul followed us in his little car to the Marriot. Even though I had been in many hotels in my life, I had never been in one so elaborate before. Paul was close at hand as his room was next to mine and Sophie’s, while her mother’s room was just across the hall from his.

I don’t know why, but somehow we were now linked together, no matter how hard we tried to go our separate ways, I had the feeling that it would not be possible. Sophie and I were best friends, and even though Paul was reluctant to show his emotions to us, we knew that he was appreciative of this relationship we were starting to forge as well. It was all going to work out.

Sara, Chapter 07 - Administrative Need

2006-09-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

Title: Administrative Need
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: first draft
Category: fiction, chapter 07 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Warnings: none in this chapter
Summary: Princess breaks through Paul's tough exterior momentarily, Paul gets some troubling news.

~~~~~
07.) ADMINISTRATIVE NEED

Three days have passed since I checked out of room 311 against medical advice. Three days have passed since I last spoke with either Sophie or Sara. Four days have passed since my life has started to change.

Along those lines, and if someone really wanted to count, there are other amounts of time that had passed for me. One year, two months and six days ago since my youngest daughter Amy last spoke to me or saw me. Three years, eight months, two weeks, and one day since my eldest daughter, Joanne, did the same. Twenty-six years, four months, one week, and three days since my wife Regina left me (and three weeks fewer before she told me she wanted a divorce). And of course, six months and three days since Anna committed suicide in my living room.

Lifetimes are measured in just that, the passage of time. Some ancient societies regarded time differently from ours. They measured it in the passing of the sun, and the rise and fall of rivers. Some didn’t even place as much of an importance on it as we do now. There was once a time and place where birthdays were not necessarily celebrated. If these people were to see a wristwatch they would assume the wearer to be a god. The modern marvel of the measuring of time is just that, a modern marvel.

Of course, you can blame western culture and the American middle class society for wanting to keep track of such things. Once a week it was expected that you went to church and pay your weekly tithe, yet another way to keep track of the time you spent at work that week. In the twentieth century, our schools teach the mores of being on time and keeping track of everything from how late a student is to how much they weigh.

Time becomes a government record.

Now though, our world is measured in both time and money. Birth and death certificates are issued that state the exact time and place of the occurrence. Shifts start and stop according to the clock. Pay rates are determined by how long you have been employed and/or how much time you spent in school. Social security is determined by how much time you put in at work, as is status and image. Someone who is considered a “slacker” by its popular definition is labeled as such because of how little time they spend doing something productive and another is labeled as a “workaholic” for doing the exact opposite.

Life as defined by the passage of time.

Of course there is one item, one very key item that I’ve left off of things I wish to keep track of. It’s been five days since I inherited the necklace. Since then, I’ve wanted to know more about myself, who I am and who I’ve become. I want to experience more. I went for a run yesterday down the road from my modest home, despite the bitter cold of winter. I had never felt so free in such a long time, just moving and running and finding the world I live in without paying attention to when I started, when I finished, or what I did in between. It was the first time in over five years that I’ve felt that way. I wish to feel it again.

When I got back, there was a note on my front door from Gloria. I had forgotten the time and the favor she was fulfilling for me, actually taking me to church for the first time since Amy made me to go her confirmation when she was in eighth grade. Truth be told though, I had also forgotten the day of the week. When I left the hospital AMA on Friday, I called in sick for my evening shift and thankfully had scheduled the weekend off for myself, as I normally would do (one of the perks of being able to finalize my department’s work schedules). Insomnia and general illness allowed me the luxury of turning off the alarm clock, sleeping as late as I wished, and doing whatever I wished for three days straight, even if the first two were spent either in bed or on the couch.

And now it’s Monday. Some bleary-eyed coworkers are starting their workweeks with me, while others are just finishing up their weeks and gearing up for their “weekend” of Tuesday and Wednesday; a random few, including my head nurse, have opted for mixing their weeks throughout my carefully crafted schedule. Gloria is standing at her desk checking over the newest schedule I had just finished, probably trying to determine what days she can afford to swap with the other nurses so she can keep her matronly eye on me.

When did I become so paranoid?

Just as I’m about to take the stack of completed patient charts to review and sign off on, I see a familiar face of a young nameless twenty-something bound into the ER with a wide smile and a pocket-full of suckers. It’s Kid, also known as Princess.

“Gloria, how are you today?” the young woman gave some of her stash of candy to my head nurse; I turned quickly around the corner to avoid detection. More importantly, I did not really feel the need to be near someone in such a good mood on such a lousy day of the week.

“You’re back. We don’t normally do follow-ups here in the ER, you’ll have to go across town to the clinic for that,” Gloria responded matter-of-factly.

“Actually, I’m not here for a follow-up. I was instead wondering if Paul was around today?” she was now drumming her fingers loudly on the counter, “I wanted to brighten up his day a little bit.”

“With what, a sucker?”

“Yes.”

Gloria sounded amused by that idea, which meant that I was in trouble. I needed an escape fast. I was just about to make it into an empty exam room when I managed to drop the entire stack of files. Thankfully, Gloria had trained my staff to secure all loose papers in them so that I didn’t have to try to sort Patient X’s labs from Patient Y’s billing information. Gloria’s ill-fated conversation continued.

“Knock yourself out if you can find him, and good luck, you’ll need it. He’s in a particularly foul mood today. Probably knows about Frankwick. Oh, by the way, thanks for the sweets Princess, it will come in handy today.”

Great, somehow Gloria had befriended this kid and sent her on her way: my way. I just hoped that I could finish recovering from my stumble before…

“Paul! You weren’t hard to find at all. How are you today?”

I just barely looked up from my stack of patient files where a pair of mismatched and worn Converse sneakers met my eye. My eye following those sneakers showed similarly worn corduroys, a sweater and sweatshirt, an old coat, and finally the smiling face of that kid from the bar the other night.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to say hello, and see if you wanted a sucker,” she handed me a piece of the candy. My body was craving sugar at the moment, but I did not know if I should really accept, as I was sure that doing so would indicate to her my wanting to continue or so-called friendship, even if the term was more from her than from me.

“No thanks, Gloria could use another though,” I wanted the sugar, but knew that by saying what I just said I had just limited myself to pilfering from Gloria’s stash she had just collected, if she would let me near it after going out of her way to try and take me to church.

“Funny, she seems to think that you could use some sugar for some reason. Maybe even more than that.” The kid handed me a few of the patient files that were out of my reach and smiled.

“Besides, I came to see how you are doing today. So, how are you Paul?”

I stared at the kid, a scowl forming on my face as all I wanted to do was yell and scream and throw the loudest tantrum I could, but I knew that it was not my place to do so being department head at a major hospital in the city of Chicago. We just didn’t do those things you know. “Why do you ask Kid?”

“Didn’t Sophie tell you? Oh well, I’ll tell you if she didn’t. Just call me Princess like anyone else does. I left before I could tell you on Friday, and you left before I came back upstairs to let you know and to check on you.”

She was beside me, keeping up with my fast paced walk slash run down the hallway. For the first time in a long time I was trying to escape to my office; the resident’s room having been passed at least ten steps ago.

“Why are you really here Princess?” the name seemed foreign on my tongue, the newness of the label she wished to use causing me to momentarily stumble on my words, and almost forget where I was going.

“Well, I really did want to see how you were doing.”

“That’s not the real motive. Why else?”

“I wanted to see you.”

We stopped where we were, having just approached the bank of elevators and I was trying to motion for her to go as I pushed the button to go upstairs. Part of me actually did want to talk with her, take the time and see whom she really is, why she’s on the street, and what she’s doing in my ER without being ill or injured that I know of. However, I knew that as I was at work, I should work and not be disturbed. I didn’t want to give in to the fact that all I really wanted to do was explore.

“Paul, I really do want to know how you are doing. How are you?”

“Why are you asking me? No one asks me.”

“Then that’s why I’m asking,” Princess smiled a toothy grin and held out a sucker to me.
I pushed the button again, not satisfied at how slow the world around me, except Princess, who seemed to be moving too fast for anyone’s good today. I’d ask her if she was high but I knew that the answer would be no. “Look kid, Princess, I have things to do, paperwork to fill out, patients to treat, meetings to get to, and one of the busiest departments in this hospital to run. I don’t have time for your trivialities. Either get to the point or leave me alone.” The elevator came and I got on.

“You talked to me for a reason,” she said, throwing her arm in front of the closing elevator door and finding her way into the lift.

I pressed the door-open button to try to get her to leave, but the car was already in motion thanks to her randomly pushing the button to the administrative office floor, I did not tell her it was the floor I was headed to. “You came over to me and bought me a drink. That’s different from me talking to you first.”

“You didn’t have to accept the drink and you did. Therefore, you didn’t have to talk to me. Now, how are you doing Paul?”

I stared at her in silence for the rest of the ride up. When we reached the floor, I made sure to stay on the elevator as she tried to get off ahead of me; I did not want her to follow me nor did I want her to keep talking to me. All I wanted was for her to go back downstairs and leave me alone. It was bad enough that I had to actually use my office, but it was worse that this punk kid was going to follow me.

“This is our stop, right?” she asked from the hallway, I nodded in agreement. “Paul, say something, please!”

I pressed the door open button so I could stay “When we’re here at the hospital, I would prefer that you address me as the rest of the staff and patients do, and that would be ‘Doctor Millard.’”

“But that’s not how I see you. How can you heal all those people when you need so much help yourself?”

I wanted her gone and quickly, so I thought that if I could turn the tables on this conversation then I could make her uncomfortable enough to stay away from me. “Listen to what you just said Princess. You’re a drug addict, and alcoholic, and I don’t even want to guess what STDs you probably have from sleeping around. So, am I supposed to take advice from you? No. Not until you can take advice from me.”

“You jumped.”

The ball was in her court now as there was no way that I could follow what she said to get her to leave. I did jump and at that point, I did want to just end everything. And, she was probably right about my needing help, but with my position, I had nowhere to go for that. Physician heal thyself as the old adage went. “Okay Princess, just come to my office and let’s talk. This hallway isn’t a good place to do so.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

I did not want anyone to overhear some of the things she was saying nor did I want anyone to know that she was talking to me. It would be a sign of weakness and yet another thing for the administration to look down upon. But, even though I at times tended to be a poor judge of other people, I could tell that she would not leave me alone without a drawn-out fight in. If I were to just give in now and kindly ask her to not bother me at work, it would be a lot easier.

When we arrived at my office, I could tell that Princess was suddenly overtaken by the reality of it. We were on the sixth floor of the hospital, the administrative floor. I often did not like to come up here not because of a lack of decoration. No. The hallways were as bleak as the rest of the building but the hospital board had long ago decided that this level needed some extra flair for visiting investors, department heads, and other administrative workers. My office had plush carpeting, oak bookcases, a matching oak desk, and floor to ceiling windows that overlooked Lake Michigan in the distance, providing the smog was not too bad. As it happened that today was one of those crisp, clean winter days, you could see for miles. If it were not for my problems with the administration, I would spend all of my time in this room.

I sat in at my desk and motioned for Princess to do the same; try as she might she could not hide the awe in her face and I realized that this was probably the nicest room she had ever seen in her life. I immediately felt guilty upon that realization and wanted to end the now awkward silence. “Princess, why did you come here?”

“I did want to see how you are doing. It’s been a few days since you discovered that necklace, and I wanted to make sure you were still here. I mean,”

“I know what you mean kid. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I don’t want you to abuse it. It’s too easy to abuse.” Her punk mentality she showed on her way up here had now changed into something of softness, caring, and wonderment. It was the first time I had seen her like this, and it made her seem much older than one would assume. I realized that her use of a punk attitude was just a coping mechanism for the harshness of the streets. Underneath was a completely different individual.

“Let me get this straight, you came here to make sure that I was still alive?”

“No. I knew that you would be alive. It’s how the necklace works.”

“Then why are you here? There must be some reason.”

“Why do you assume that I want something from you? I have everything physical that I want, and if there is something that I need, I can get it at St. Anthony’s. Maybe I just want to make sure that you are okay. Have you ever thought about that? Or has your life been so shallow and empty that no one has ever been concerned for you?”

Shallow and empty? Is this how strangers viewed my life? Certainly not my patients. Maybe a few of my coworkers would, but I usually tried hard enough to keep outsiders out of my life. Maybe she was right. “Look kid, you’re not the first person to come to me with this song and dance routine, so excuse my apprehension to outright fulfill your pursuit of my well-being.” I turned and started to look for the forms needed for the files I had to finish before the end of the day.

“What are you afraid of? That you’re going to have to connect to someone?”

“I’m afraid that yet another homeless person is going to try to use me for their money.”

“You don’t deserve that necklace.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“No. You’re treating this as some sort of a cosmic joke. It doesn’t work that way. You get it, you find out about it, and then it changes you. It gives you a choice. A new life or death. You don’t get to decide, at least not knowingly. When you jumped and thought of the people here at this hospital, it decided that there was still something left in your life to live for. If you didn’t think of them, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

I took a pen from my desk drawer and started going through the patient files, signing off on last weeks admissions and treatments; I would wait for Princess to leave before doing my dictations. “Kid, I have work to do. Go take your philanthropy to pediatrics or something.”

“Something changed for you Paul. What was it?”

“I started running again, okay? I haven’t run since my residency, and for some reason, I just wanted to go running. Is that a good enough answer for you?”

Princess’s sat up straighter in the chair, it must have been what she wanted to hear. “What else Paul?”

I looked at her. “I considered going to church, but I missed my ride.”

Princess was now sitting on the edge of her seat, “There’s more though, isn’t there?”

“I’m using my office, but that might be because a twenty-something homeless woman with an identical necklace to mine is stalking me right now.”

She fell back into her chair and crossed her arms, audibly sighing in the process.

“Why do you really want to know how I am doing kid?”

“A perfect stranger just does not tell you the things you told me the other night.”

“You know I was drugged.”

“Still, you told me those things because you wanted to talk to someone, right?”

I looked back down at my work, not knowing how to respond. She really was right. I did want to reconnect with people, I did want to talk to someone, and I did want to desperately tell someone other than my nursing staff how I was doing, but it just wasn’t my way of doing things. My way was to stay as far away from other people’s versions of reality as possible, to keep them away from me so that I would not become dependant on them. It was not in my nature to allow someone to take advantage of me, hurt me. Not when I always tried to fix everyone that came into my workplace, my ER.

“Paul, why don’t you want to tell me how you are doing?”

“You wouldn’t want to know.”

“How do you view me Paul? Am I really that ignorant punk homeless kid who is trying to use you to get money and drugs?”

“That’s exactly how I see you.”

“Why do you assume that about me? I’m not like that.”

“From what I’ve seen so far kid, you are. Only in this case, it’s something about this necklace that has drawn you to me.”

“You still didn’t really say how you view me.”

“Yes I did.”

“Saying that you agree with me is no the same as saying the actual words. I’m not what you assume that I am and I’m trying to convince you of that. No one who lives in this neighborhood is really what you assume we are. So please try to open your mind for a moment and pretend to be a person who might actually unconditionally care for other people around you.”

I flipped open another chart and started to review it. “In other words, let you take advantage of me. Is that the only way you people know how to function? Steal, cheat, lie your way to the things you need, destroying any goodness or innocence around you? That’s what I’ve seen kid. That’s why it’s so hard to trust you and your neighbors.”

She looked down into her hands, studying what I assumed to be track marks fading at different degrees and speeds. She couldn’t look me in the eye and her shoulders were slumped over; she was disappointed somehow. “Just answer this one question and I’ll go Paul. I won’t return, I’ll leave you alone, and you can forget that any of this happened. You can go back to your life, and I’ll go back to mine.”

I felt guilty again. I just wanted to do my work and be left alone for a while, not push her away. I had more to discover about that necklace after all. “Look kid, I’m just busy, that’s all. It’s hard to concentrate on these files and talk…”

“…argue,” she interrupted.

“Okay, argue with you at the same time. But, how do you know who I am or what I am? Is it because we talked at a bar for a few minutes? This necklace? How do you know that now you are not making false accusations about me?”

“I don’t know, it’s just a feeling really.”

“Okay. Now, maybe I don’t ’want to tell you how I am because I find it to be a personal question, and you don’t nearly know me well enough to infringe on what I consider to be something that a stranger should not know.”

I looked at Princess from my files and saw she had sunken further into the chair. “I’m sorry Paul,” she had quietly muttered through what had to be intense emotion, “I shouldn’t have assumed. But, I don’t think that you should have either. We’re not all bad Paul. Not all of us are criminals looking for a handout.”

“How can you survive that and not be?”

“We do what we have to so that we can survive. You do too. You assume we just purposely go and steal something for the reward when we don’t.”

I nodded in agreement, “That’s pretty much what I assume.”

“What do you thing our reward is when we do those things?”

I stopped and thought for a moment, thinking back to all of the times that patients have stolen from my department or used my fellow colleagues to get drugs. “Luxury items, TVs, stereos, drugs, money, jewelry. Do I need to go on, because I can list more?”

“No, you’re wrong. Grocery money, money to pay the utility bill, money for rent. We take the items to a dealer, cash in on it, and use it for the things we need.”

“You’re simplifying it.”

“Somewhat.”

“You take ownership of those things.”

“Again, somewhat. We cannot own what we do not have. But, we can take ownership of fond memories and our relationships. You, you own things: homes, cars, offices, TVs, stereos, and the list goes on. So I can see where you would assume the things that you do.”

I signed off on yet another file, taking in the words she had just said. So she can survive with the help of the people around her. I didn’t need help. She survived by committing crimes to her fellow neighbor, and that I could not tolerate. I wanted her to admit to it though before I came clean with anything else she may have been trying. “Okay Princess. What do you do to survive?” I could see that she was nervous when I asked her this question. “Kid, if you want me to believe you when you say that you’re not using me, then you need to tell me what you do to survive. It’s not that difficult.”

She quietly stood up from her chair and inched her way to the door. With her back turned to me she muttered, “It’s not what you think Doctor Millard. It’s nothing really. Sorry for taking up your time.”

I had gone too far. I wanted to momentarily make her uncomfortable, make her think about her life. “Kid, Princess, you don’t have to go.”

“I took up your time. I’m sorry.”

I watched her walk to the door, stopping momentarily to admire the wood around its frame, knowing she had probably never seen wood like that before. Just as one foot stepped out into the hallway I heard the words come from my lips, words I that I had never intended to tell her, words that were foreign to me and my tongue. “I think I need help Princess.” What was I doing? I saw the young woman stop and I suddenly heard myself continue, “I was on that ledge for a reason kid, and I’m not doing well. I’m still alive, but I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I had never planned for any of this.”

I had never experienced such foreign words, truthful as they were, come from me. I would always skirt the subject when it came up, as I had since Princess had appeared here earlier today. Now, for the first time since I was truly alone, I was actually admitting to someone what was truly going through my mind.

Princess still had not moved from her spot in my doorway, but one hand had moved to wipe her face; presumably she was crying but her back was still to me so I could not tell. “I’ve prostituted myself,” the words carefully fell from the whisper of her voice, “That’s how I’ve survived. As a prostitute.”

“You said it yourself Princess, you did what you had to do. It’s survival.”

She turned around, her face streaked with tears. “Really? Do you actually view it as that? Survival? Because a few minutes ago you were accusing me of lying, cheating, and stealing to get luxury items that I did not deserve.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Yes it is Paul, and you know it.”

“Princess, you know that I was just saying those things to get you to leave.”

“Forget it Paul. I’m leaving as you have wished me to do all along.”

“No, you can’t. I opened up to you and told you how I felt, and you just opened up to me as well. That has to mean something kid. Come in, have a seat. It sounds like we both need to talk.” I stared at her in silence and she refused to move. “Please?” I added at the end.

“You have work to do and I’d only be imposing.”

“My lunch break is coming soon. Can I at least buy you something from the cafeteria? It’s actually pretty decent, despite rumors from the nursing staff.”

Princess smiled gently. “Okay,” she said as she walked back in towards my desk.

“Here,” I reached into my wallet and pulled out a twenty dollar bill, probably more money than she ever held in her life, but mere pocket change to me. “I have a few more charts to sign, so is it alright if I meet you there in ten minutes?”

“Sure,” she took the money and looked at it in amazement.

“Could you get me a cheeseburger, a bag of chips, and a large soda? It shouldn’t be more than six dollars. You can get whatever you’d like with what’s left. You do know where the cafeteria is, right?”

“Yes. First floor past the ER waiting room on the left.”

“I’ll be down shortly.”

“Thanks Paul,” she smiled, about to leave my office, “Why didn’t you want to answer my question though?”

I stopped mid-signature and had to think. “It’s been too long since anyone asked me how I was doing and didn’t just do so because of good manners.”

“When was the last time?”

I had to stop to think again; I really wasn’t sure that anyone had. “To be honest, I don’t think anyone has ever asked me. They’ve just said it in passing to be polite, but never taken the time to either force it from me or listen to me. That’s why I didn’t want to answer you, because I didn’t know how to tell you the truth.”

“Wow, I’m sorry. Maybe things will change now for you.”

“That cheeseburger is probably getting cold. Ten minutes?”

“Sure Paul, and thank you once again.” She beamed a smile in my direction, practically running from my office leaving me alone in their for the first time in about a month. I turned my attention back to the charts and noticed that I had gotten down to the ones from Wednesday night; Sophie Tyradil’s admissions sheet was on top. I glanced it over and noticed that everything was in order, signing it off to be given to Ortho later on. I moved that aside and had to blink at the next chart in the stack. My chart met my eyes, lying on my desk just like any other, its dull beige blending in with the same dull beige as the others. I never had bothered to ask the staff what had happened to me or more importantly, what I had ingested. Only two things I wanted to see could tell me the truth; one was in front of me and the other I had just trusted to buy my lunch.

“Doctor Millard?” a young woman named Claire from the administrator’s office down the hall knocked on my door. “Doctor Frankwick wants to see you. He tried you downstairs but you weren’t there so he told me to try your hiding spots.”

“Thank you Claire. You can tell him that I’ll meet with him this afternoon.”

“He’s pretty upset and is demanding to see you now. I’ve never seen him this furious. I think he knows about last week, what with the AMA and all.”

I signed another chart and piled the rest together, making sure to hide mine on the bottom. “Tell him I have an urgent follow-up with a patient that I need to attend to. He’ll understand and if he doesn’t I still don’t care.”

“But sir, he means business this time.”

“I know Claire, he always does. Just tell him I will see him in an hour.”

“Yes Doctor.” Claire had walked off and I locked the stack of files in my desk for safekeeping until later. I had no intention of speaking with Frankwick yet knew that the longer I waited the angrier he would be. Didn’t matter though. Someone who cared for me was waiting with my lunch. It had been too long since I had last thought of those words.

Quick Update/Notes on Sara

2006-09-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

Just finished my second drafts of the first six chapters, including rewriting the character of Sophie and renaming a couple of places. The manuscript of the these six chapters comes to 34,769 words already! I can't believe how much this has become from one little short story about a nameless homeless girl with a necklace.

Here are a few things to remember as you read, which I encourage you to do:

Links are on the right for each chapter from the main page of this writing blog: http://arizonamyrie3.blogspot.com
If you see the words "Live Free," it needs to be changed to "St. Anthony's," "St. A's," "St. Anthony of Padua Outreach Center," or "the center."
If you see the words "Pizza King," it needs to be changed to "Big Eddie's." (FYI - it's really hard to name a dive bar since so many good ones don't really have names at all).
"Sara" is a working-title only. As time goes on, this may or may not change depending on where the story takes its course.

Listing of Chapters and Word Counts:

Chapter 01 - Churchbells and Sunrises -- 5,224 words
Chapter 02 - Clinical Philosophy -- 6,290 words
Chapter 03 - My Husband -- 5,424 words
Chapter 04 - Fallen Angels -- 5,773 words
Chapter 05 - Inquiries -- 5,159 words
Chapter 06 - Waking Angels -- 6,899 words

Sara, Chapter 06 - Waking Angels

2006-09-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

Title: Waking Angels
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: second draft
Category: fiction, short-story, chapter 06 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Warnings: abusive relationship
Summary: The four main characters meet, Robert gives Sophie the necklace, the three heroes discover what they have in common.

~~~~~

06.) WAKING ANGELS

Some people describe Chicago as cold. They say that the harsh winds emanating from Lake Michigan are just a simple metaphor for the cold harsh reality of life in Big City, USA. Yet others describe the cold as emanating from the residents themselves, cold souls chilling the city to sub-arctic temperatures, leaving lifeless piles of snow and ice in their wake. It is described that the people in this city take their lives for granted. They assume that they will get up and go through the actions of their day with little change from their normal or desired schedules. They assume that their lives were given to them by something bigger, better, but fail to give recognition to that entity, and fail to take solace from it as well.

Robert and I believe that Americans take their lives for granted. Once where entire communities and countries were built around religious beliefs and Puritan ideas were common now stand buildings decaying in their own shadows, long forgotten by the temptations of sin, lust, and pleasure. We have always shared these beliefs to some extent, but it is Robert who has shown me the true path to righteousness through our God. Our country is warm and beautiful

Some people describe Chicago as cold, but I on the other hand regard it as perennially warm, much like the world around us. The people here have been far nicer than I had ever imagined them to be and the city is more full of life than I had ever imagined. To start, I have never seen a city that is so active in the evening hours. Even my home town of Boston followed in its Puritanical roots at night. There have been nights that I’ve had to work at St. Anthony’s, manning the phone in case of emergencies that inevitably arise. The center serves as soup kitchen, outreach center, and homeless shelter for neighborhood that it is in, should a person need refuge for the night. In the case of the blizzard that had recently passed, one could easily assume that over one hundred people found warm shelter within our walls that night, some sleeping on cots, others in our beds, and even more in sleeping bags scattered about. There are occasions as well where a homeless person would need to rely on us when ill and too weak to stay on the streets in the evenings, or are just suffering and need a friendly ear to talk to. The people of this neighborhood are eternally grateful for what they have and what they can find to help them survive. It is rough out there, but almost everyone that I’ve met has told me how much he or she enjoys a life here. They each enjoy a sense of freedom in their lives that they would not have ordinarily.

Second, and possibly more importantly, I have found a way to take refuge from my possibly ill-suited marriage. I of course take refuge at St. Anthony’s during my days and weekends, or whenever my husband Robert becomes overbearing. However, in the previous several hours, I have discovered a new place of refuge, one to go when my body decides that it cannot function; the refuge of County General Hospital.

That’s where I find myself now. Despite the snow having stopped long ago, yesterday in fact, the sky is still ominously overcast and dark, making the fluorescent lights of my hospital room even brighter and harsher than they are in reality. Maybe it was the pain medication, but I can see each individual bulb flicker. I have already tried to turn them off, but find myself weak from surgery yesterday. I had broken my arm while driving into the city and needed surgery to repair the break and damaged tissue where the bone had jutted from my skin in an effort to free itself of the confines of reality. I buzzed a nurse to come and hopefully dim the lights as I do not think I can do so myself, but I have not seen him yet. In the bed next to me lies a man, who is only familiar from a strange sense of déjà vu that is encompassing my senses, snoozing the late morning away. The nurses tried to wake him for breakfast, but could not. I heard something about him having his stomach pumped last night. Maybe I’ve seen him at St. Anthony’s; the multi-day old growth of stubble on his face reminds me of someone, but yet I cannot place whom.

I hit the call button again, I do not know if it is the lights or the medication they put me on, but everything around me is starting to flicker more, and making the orange juice from breakfast sit wrong in my stomach. I would give anything just to have someone sit with me, help get me through this. Anyone but Robert whom I had become angry with for all of this. Though I loved him dearly, I had witnessed enough of his abuse. He had become his father, and I hoped that he would understand that. I called him yesterday, shortly before I walked into the emergency room downstairs, to tell him what had happened and that we both needed help. Had it not been for our argument, I would not have fled his harsh words and even harsher criticism. I would have stayed at home, not driven on the snow and ice-covered roads into the city. I would have listened to him.

Of course, had I actually listened to him, I know I would have been in far worse shape than I am now. We had once tried to have a child together, and in its sixth month of life in my womb, Robert had beaten me. It had started out as a simple argument about living so far out in the countryside, an argument we’ve had many times without further incident, but this time I did not want my child or myself to be isolated from the lives of the people in the city, and I had told him so. He told me how we were free to do as we chose out here in this no man’s land. Words escalated to my being slapped, which escalated to my being pushed to the floor and then beaten. He of course apologized when he regained his composure when he realized what he had done, but the damage had already happened. That night in the shower, I noticed that I was bleeding and the blood came faster and faster, not wanting to stop.

“Mrs. Tyradil, how can I help you? Are you okay?” The sound of the nurse had jarred me from my thoughts, and just as I had realized that she was sitting next to me on the bed, I had realized that I had been crying. I asked her politely to turn off the overhead lights and she obliged, the flickering of the hallway lights now filled the room instead. The sky began to liberate its soft snowflakes now, and I lay back in bed, just watching them fall, the book offered to me by a candy-striper lay on my bedside table untouched. I closed my eyes and, with now both sight and feeling being extinguished, overheard a conversation in the hall.

“We still don’t have a private room available. Poor guy. I only really know him from meetings, and that’s it. It’s a shame what happened to his friends. No wonder he sticks to himself, probably doesn’t trust anyone anymore because of that.”

“Maybe it’s good he has a roommate then. Even if both of their insurances would cover the private, he needs to talk to someone. So does she. Heard he’s been lashing out at the nurses in the ER lately. What happened to him anyway?”

“Some woman said he had too much at a bar down the road, Big Eddie’s or something. Said he was bringing her in for her ankle. She left AMA before anyone could look at it, and all we had to go on was her story and Paul’s tox screen. He had been hit good with Rohypnol, and his BAC was 0.23, even after his stomach had been pumped. Not surprised he’s still out cold. The administration will have a field day with this; they’ve been after him ever since Frank and Anna left. They were the ones that cushioned the blows to him. It hit him so hard. They were such good friends…”

With that, the mysterious voices disappeared down the hallway and I was left alone again, just with my thoughts and the snow falling outside my window. The phone in my room was not working, and I had wanted to call Robert, let him know that I was okay, but could not. I had asked a nurse this morning to call him instead, and she left a message for him. Despite all the cruelty and pain he could cause, I still wanted to see him badly, desperately. I closed my eyes again and started to cry.

I heard a small knock on the door, the way Robert knocked after I had lost the baby and was in the hospital. Was he here? Did he actually come? I opened my eyes, and turned to see a familiar yet unexpected face.

“Princess! What are you doing here?”

In the doorway stood the small woman of great courage I knew from St. Anthony’s. At first glance, she appeared to be an everyday homeless woman from the dark alleyways that thrived in this neighborhood. Most people would just pass her by, not giving her the time of day. I know her differently.

Princess had been coming to St. Anthony’s since before I had been in Illinois. She never really spoke much about herself or who she was. She was selfless. Being homeless, an outsider would think that she would use the services of the center to eat and find refuge from the cold streets, which she did. However, over the years, she had begun to volunteer with us behind the counter, and now was considered a full-fledged member of the St. Anthony’s team. She had become my closest ally at the center, and had always been there for me. Funny, one would never consider a homeless person being the one to help a person with everything, but she was.

One day I had asked her what her name really was. She often was shy when it came to talking about herself, and just content to see someone smile after being near her. Rather than answering my question, she told me of her upbringing in foster homes, and finally how she ran away to Chicago, thinking it would bring her a new life. It did. The day she came here was the day she adopted the nickname Princess, given to her by a young child she gave a hug to for comfort. I never did find out her real name; she enjoys the freedom of anonymity far too much.

Today though, I was thoroughly surprised to see her. More surprised to see her limp though. I wondered what had happened to her, but I knew she wouldn’t tell until after she managed to get my story out of me. Our friendship just worked that way.

“Sophie, what are you doing here?” Princess asked me.

“Little car accident trying to get to St. Anthony’s yesterday. Just a little scratched up.”

“Sophie, they don’t put you in the hospital for just a little scratched up. What happened?”

I told her about the argument Robert and I had, and how I still insisted on coming. I told her about the drive in, and how when I was just about to reach the center I hit a patch of ice. I told her about the fracture in my wrist.

“Sophie, did Robert give you that cut on your face?” Princess got up to look more closely at the cut. I had forgotten about it with everything else going on. “I’ve told you time and time again…”

“…nothing good will come of him,” we said together in unison. “I know you’ve said that so many times Princess, but you don’t understand.”

“How many times do you hear women come in off the streets saying the exact same things to you at St. A’s, and how many times do you tell them the exact same things I’ve been telling you?”

I looked at Princess, knowing where this conversation was going. I had told countless women the advice she gave me. I had heard the same countless women respond, telling me that I didn’t know how good a man he was, or how he just promised to change. I knew the story because I was living it. I also knew that staying on this subject would just depress me more, and it was the last thing I wanted right now. All I really knew was that I had to begin to live moment to moment. When it was time to see Robert again, that moment would dictate what to say and do.

“Princess, why did you come here? Did they tell you I was here at St. A’s?”

She looked guilty. “Actually, I came here to see your roommate. It was just a coincidence that I ran into you here. But…”

Before Princess could finish her statement, another familiar face popped in at the door.

“Robert?”

“Sophie. Hi.” Robert walked in meekly. Though I desperately wanted to see him, I honestly hadn’t suspected that he’d come at all. In fact, I didn’t know what to think of his presence here at all. The neighborhoods surrounding County General often reminded the middle and upper classes of only death and decay. Most people avoided this area just so they wouldn’t feel guilty. On occasion, a random tourist would wind up here, lost, and be greeted by the street’s own brand of hospitality. But today, I hoped that Robert came out of goodness. Princess shot me a protective look as she stood up and walked over to my roommate’s side of the curtain, abandoning the chair next to the bed where she had been sitting.

“The nurses told me you’ll be discharged tomorrow, after the pain meds work through your system.” Robert came and sat down where Princess had been sitting. I heard her purposely cough to remind me of what had caused me to be here in the first place. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay, I guess. Why are you here Robert?”

“I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“You thought wrong Robert. You’ve become your father, and you told me that you had never wanted that, in all of your life. You’re the reason I’m here. I went into the city yesterday to get away from your abuse.”

I realized as soon as I felt his arm around my shoulder that I had not yet looked at him since he walked through the door. I was grateful that he was here, only because there was still love between us, to some extent. But, I also despised the fact that he had come here. I didn’t want to see or speak to him.

“Sophie, I was thinking. You’re right. I have become my father, and I don’t want that.”

He was whispering into my ear now, trying to keep the words between us private. He was hugging me, and once again, I realized that I was crying. He always did this. He’d start out mean and then turn sweet after an argument. He’d hit me, and then apologize, and I’d always forgive him. I was too weak, too cut off from the world around me to stand up for myself. But he loved me, and he told me as he whispered, brushing my hair back with his free hand.

“I got you something, to remind you of how much I really love you. And, if you wear it all the time, I’ll remember it too. I’ll see it, and it will show me how much you really love me.”

“Robert, no.”

“What? What are you talking about Sophie? You love my presents.”

“Robert, I’ve seen this from you too often in the past, and it’s time to change. If I take your gift it means that I’m allowing you to continue to do what you do, and I don’t wan that. I used to love you Robert, but now, I’m just scared of you. I don’t want that either. I want the old Robert Tyradil back.” I looked into his eyes for the first time since he arrived. I was scared of what was happening to us, and I could tell that he was too.

“Sophie, I want to change, but I don’t know how. You said I’ve become my father, but it’s hard for me to control that. Ever since I’ve moved to Chicago, I’ve become more and more like him, and I don’t want that at all. When we first met back in college, I wanted my life to be more like yours; I think that’s why I was drawn to you so early on. I wanted to help people. Will you help me help people Sophie?” He looked at me with those eyes, the eyes he flashed at me the night we first met and I felt a pang of guilt in my stomach. He was charming me all over again, the way he charms courtrooms full of lawyers and jurors. He was too good at that.

Princess had overheard what Robert had said and cleared her throat in my direction. “Is that lady over there going to be alright? She’s been coughing a lot.” Robert was referring to Princess, whom he had never met, because if he knew I had a friend, it meant that I was keeping attention away from him. Since the incident six months ago, he had become extremely possessive of me and did not want me to confide in anyone other than him.

“Princess just needs to go to the waiting room for a little while so we can talk in private.”

“I’ll behave Sophie, just remember what I told you.” Princess called from next to my roommate’s bed, closing the curtain that divided the room into two parts, giving Robert and me some privacy.

Robert looked back at me, “Is she leaving?”

I looked over and heard no sound from the girl, “She’s fine and she’ll be quiet. Right Princess?”

“Sure,” she called out from the other side of the room, her tone of voice inflecting that she would let me talk to Robert but that she would hold us both to our every word. It was probably better that she was there anyway to do so as Robert and I were both prone to slip back into our old ways. That can’t be allowed in an intervention.

“Robert, I love you and I want you to know that. And I want you to be happy, just as you want me to be happy. I’ll accept your gift after you’ve been to see someone for professional help, and not that guy in the strip mall just down the road from your office, but and actual psychologist. If nothing else, we’ll go together. I want us to get through this, or there may no longer be an ‘us.’”

Robert looked at the box in his hands and put it back in his coat pocket. “Okay Sophie, I will. Do you forgive me?”

I had to think hard. I wanted to forgive him but knew I couldn’t yet; not because my will wanted me to, but because Princess wouldn’t let me in the long run until everything was right with our relationship again, if ever. “I want to Robert, but I can’t unless you promise me you will try to change.”

Robert stopped in thought and looked down at his watch, “I have to meet a client soon. We’ll talk later, okay?” He smiled at me with a smile that could melt ice as he leaned in to kiss me.

“Robert,” I had put my good hand in front of his face, “no. You can be five minutes late. Promise me you’ll talk to someone.”

“It’s not that bad Sophie. The last time this happened…”

“Was when I miscarried. Robert, I love you, but if you don’t try to change, then we can’t be together.”

Robert stopped and I could see that he was honestly giving thought to what I was saying. This was good; I needed him to know that I was serious about this and that I wasn’t going to give in to his manipulative love, even if I wanted to most of the time.

“Okay Sophie. I’ll call someone and make an appointment for us. We’ll talk more tonight.” Robert stood up and walked out of the room, pulling the small box that was intended for me out of his pocket and looking at it deep in thought. I wanted to accept the gift, forgive him, and put everything in the past as I had done so often, but knew that if I did, I would just be ignoring the problem that had caused our relationship too much stress. I couldn’t let it continue anymore, and I knew Princess, who had been listening in to the entire conversation, wouldn’t let me let it continue.

“Wow,” Princess muttered when she saw Robert get on the elevator, “I didn’t know you would actually do that. Good for you. Lets just hope he makes the appointment.”

“If he doesn’t, I will.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Not anymore. I’m going to a hotel for awhile after this. It’s not safe for me to be at home yet.”

“Good idea.” Princess picked up her magazine from my roommate’s bedside table again.

“I managed to get through to my parents this morning, and my mom and sister are flying out tonight. They’re getting me a hotel room and I’ll stay with them for awhile. Anyway, you were saying you came to visit my roommate? “

“Yeah, but he’s still out cold. I’m actually more interested in that box Robert had wanted to give you.”

“Oh that. It’s probably just another little trinket. He’s always giving them to me, usually after fights or what not. No big deal. Actually, he got me this last month,” I reached into my purse on the nightstand and pulled out a small silver cross necklace that Robert found in a pawn shop while at a Harvard Law reunion a couple of months ago.

“The necklace!” Princess jumped from her chair and took it from my hand and stared at the trinket in awe.

“What has gotten into you girl?” I had never seen her react to anything the way she had reacted to this.

Rather than respond, she reached into the neckline of her sweatshirt and pulled out a necklace that was identical to the one I had just shown her. “There are only three like this that I know of in the entire world. I have one, as far as I can tell, your roommate has my grandmother’s, and you now must have my aunt’s. I don’t know much about them other than a note that was left with mine.” She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a wrinkled note. “This was with the necklace when I got it,” and handed the note to me.

I looked at the piece of yelloed-aged paper and turned it over in my hands, looking closely at the faded ink. It was apparently older than she thought. I looked at the inscription, “Do not open unless you are ready for your life to change.” Rather cryptic for a gift; no “love” or “from” or anything of the sort. I handed the paper back to Princess, “Are you sure this necklace is the same? Are you sure that one of these isn’t just a replica? Both even? Princess, how do you know that this is even real?”

She touched the necklace on her neck, an aged look of rejection overtook her face. “In all the time we’ve known each other, have I ever lied to you or said anything that has not made sense?”

“No.”

“Then believe me when I say this Sophie, my life has changed since I put on this necklace. Not by much, but things, little things mind you, are completely different. The way I perceive things are different.”

“Princess, what have you been using” She was scaring me. I’ve tried in the past to get her to quit using the drugs she so desperately was addicted to. She tried to glamorize it, show everyone how enlightening they were, but at the end of the day it always came down to one simple truth: her body had become dependant on the drugs.

“Sophie, I haven’t used a single substance since last night. I had a few beers at Big Eddie’s this week, but that was it. It’s as if I no longer need the drugs. I’m starting to find what I’ve been looking for my entire life, and I don’t even know what that is. Everything is changing, and the only reason I can think of is because I put on the necklace.”

I looked at my necklace, which Princess had handed back to me. Robert gave it to me on our trip back to Massachusetts for the reunion. We had arrived a day early, and he knew that I did not want to go as it would only remind me of what I had lost. We ended up window-shopping in Boston and we came to an old pawnshop that he insisted we go in and visit. He found the necklace almost instantly and said he was drawn to it and that he wanted me to have it. After we walked out of the shop, I slid it into my purse and never thought to take it out. I had told myself that I just never bothered to remove it and that by putting it my jewelry box at home I would be angering Robert. The truth was different thought; I felt compelled to carry it with me and I didn’t know why. It was as if the trinket forced itself into my possession against my will, but if I told Princess that, it would only confirm her insane story. Things just don’t happen the way she says they are.

“Princess,” I didn’t want to lie, but knew it would be best for all of us if I did,” the only reason I’ve carried this with me is because I forgot about it. I’ve felt no difference while I’ve had it in my purse. No difference, none at all, so we can stop with this fantasy.” I looked down at my necklace again and thought about her words more carefully. I had never put my necklace on, I always kept it tucked away far from thought or reason. How was I to know its history or what it really did? Coughing from the next bed over interrupted my thoughts.

“What am I doing here? You again?” A man’s voice broke the silence of the room and my thoughts.

Princess turned and responded to the man, “You’re welcome for making you get medical attention Paul. If it wasn’t for me you would have spent last night in the gutter somewhere.”

“No. If it wasn’t for you I would have gone home and be in my own bed not in,” a pause where I could only assume he looked at the hospital identification bracelet on his wrist, “room 211. Great, I’m next to the nurses station.” I heard my roommate’s nurses call button go off, and a steady beeping emitted from somewhere to my right.

“Paul, what do you remember from last night?” Princess apparently knew him somehow. Paul. His face was familiar, and the more I listened to his complaints, the more I realized that his voice sounded familiar, but I didn’t know how.

“Kid, of course I remember it. I remember buying you whiskey at that hell-hole dive bar. Why aren’t you in a hospital gown like me though?”

“I bought you the whiskey. I drank beer.”

“No.”

“Well, that’s what it was, and you’re welcome.”

Watching Princess and Paul argue was somewhat entertaining. It reminded me of my mother teasing my father after a hard day, just to remind him that he was human and that we all had bad days. I was almost sure that she was doing the same thing. I was hoping she would, or else it sounded like Paul was about to metaphorically bite her head off.

“Before the nurses get here, what else do you remember? The necklace perhaps?”

Paul was silent. Princess’ usual way of interrogation had touched Paul somehow, and in return, he gave a shocked silence. I should know. The first time I came to St. Anthony’s after a rough fight with Robert that left me bruised and battered she confronted me in the same manner that she was doing to Paul. It wasn’t pretty until she won the fight. Then you had to give in and listen to her.

“So you do remember the necklace.”

“Yes. And I’ve decided that I want no part of this. Goodbye Kid. Leave me alone.”

“Okay Paul. Too bad I know your roommate too.”

“The necklace,” my roommate Paul looked at me and murmured, shocked and pale. “Where is it?”

“It’s still around your neck Paul, it’s okay.” Princess tried to reassure my roommate, and I could tell that a thought suddenly hit Princess. I didn’t know what to think, or what to do. Princess stood between Paul and me, looking between us both, not in the eye or face as one would expect, but she instead looked from necklace to necklace as I first realized that Paul was wearing one as well. On one hand, seeing her say these things confirmed that the trinket was old and rare, but on the other hand, seeing and hearing these things scared me as well. And now my roommate seemed to be possessed by this same sort of nonsense story with its nonsense connection to my friend. What did she know that I didn’t?

“All three necklaces are here in the room, together again.” Princess dropped down into the chair between the two hospital beds. I reached out and touched her shoulder, reminding her that she was not the only one in the room, and that she was not hallucinating from whatever she had taken last. I looked over at Paul, and he wore a similar face, only he was staring at me as if he knew me.

“What’s going on here? What do you mean by ‘all three’ Kid?” Paul asked from his bed, leaning painfully on his left side to see what was going on, his eyes also darting from trinket to trinket, and back to my face.

Princess looked down at her necklace, thumbed it in her hands. “It’s nothing, never mind,” she whispered uncontrollably as she tried to walk to the door to leave. Paul watched her.

I looked over at Paul again and realized where I had seen him before. “Paul Millard? Doctor Paul Millard?” I asked, looking over at what state he was in now as compared to when I first saw him six months ago.

“How did you know my name lady?”

“Sophie, you can call me Sophie. You probably don’t remember me thought, but you treated me six months ago after my husband hit me and I fell.”

“That wasn’t the real story. You took my advice I hope.”

I looked down at my wrist in response.

“You’re here though, so you, like all the others before you obviously didn’t.”

“It wasn’t that. I was in a car accident driving in the blizzard.”

“And you have only one cut on your face. I’ve seen it many times before from many women just like you. A few men too here and there. It’s not worth it and I hope you know it.”

Princess stood and walked over to Paul, intervening on my behalf, “She’s caught him at his game this time Paul. He’s getting counseling and she’s staying at a hotel until he’s better.”

“He won’t change.”

”If he doesn’t then I’m going back to Boston, so you don’t have to worry.”

“If he doesn’t change Mrs. Tyradil, then it means you will find out when he hits you again. When will that be? Six months? A year? Get away from him now while you still can.”

I was about to speak and ask Paul how he knew my name when Princess spoke up again, “Paul, will you give it a rest? Her car is in the parking lot with a dent in the door. This was a car accident. Besides, what do you know about her anyway?”

“Kid, I know enough because I see women like her everyday, right downstairs. There’s probably two waiting to be seen right now as we speak.”

Princess glared over at Paul to try to get him to stop. “Paul, I’m her friend, one of many in fact, and we all will make sure that this will not happen to her again. She’s even called her family and they are coming out to help us make sure that she will not let her husband slip up again.” Princess stood up from her chair too quickly, her foot hitting the leg of the table next to her, throwing her weight suddenly onto her injured ankle, “Ow!”

“Kid, did anyone look at your ankle last night?”

Princess stopped where she was, embarrassed at her sudden clumsiness in front of us. She must have also realized that she was noticeably limping now as well.

“Kid, did anyone look at your ankle?”

“I left after they took you in. I can only afford the free clinic across town, so I left as soon as the nurse turned her back.”

“Well Kid, it’s probably just sprained, but you should have someone look at it anyway.”

I looked at Princess and then at Paul, and noticed for the first time since I saw her, how much pain she actually was in. Other than a few steps here or there, I had not seen her walk much since she arrived.

“They wrapped it at St. A’s last night, they wanted to bring me back here, but I insisted on waiting until today to see someone. But don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.” Princess always said that. She always put others first, despite being the one who really needed the help. My arm would heal, Paul would be okay, but there stood Princess, possibly with a broken ankle.

“How are you doing Paul? That’s what I really came here to find out.”

It was sad to see such a strong person ignore her own needs because of what she deemed as trivial reasons. She needed to learn still that there are times where your needs truly become more important than the needs of others. I could see that Paul was thinking similar thoughts.

“Kid, listen to me. I’m a doctor, and there’s the possibility that you’ve severely injured your ankle. It could be broken and the break might have hit a blood vessel, or it could just be a simple pulled muscle. You need an x-ray and a qualified doctor to look it over. The bar’s property insurance, which they should have, will cover it. If they don’t have it, I’m sure Sophie can convince her husband to help you make sure your medical costs are covered. It’s the least he can do for her. Besides, it was my arguing with you that caused you to trip in the first place. I buzzed the nurse when I first woke up, and when she comes in, she can take you down to the ER so one of my colleagues can look at it. Ask for Gloria as a nurse, and tell her that I sent you. Okay?”

How did Paul know that my husband could help Princess legally and how did he know that my last name? I hadn’t told him, and even though he seemed to remember me from six months ago, I’m sure he had other patients come in just like me. I’m sure that by now my face should have blended in with everyone else’s that he has met over the course of his career. I’m sure my story in actuality isn’t different from anyone else’s, is it?

Princess looked at Paul, desperate to lose the attention now given to her by the two of us in the room, and the nurse walking in behind her. She kept looking at me as if begging me to let her serve us again.

“Princess, I think you should listen to Paul. He’s and excellent doctor and knows what he’s talking about. Okay?”

With that, Princess nodded, and smiled, holding back frustration. She has never liked attention given to her. Shortly after she left the room, and Paul reassured the nurse that he didn’t need anything, he leaned back over the rail on his bed.

“I’m sorry for how I treated you the other night, after the accident.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was your doctor, right? Compound fracture to the left wrist. Your husband hit your left cheek with his pen in his right hand.”

“You were my doctor six months ago, when I miscarried.”

“I wasn’t you doctor last night?”

“No, Linda McGregor was. Why?”

“Nevermind. It was just a dream.” Paul turned his head back to the ceiling above him and sighed.

“Paul, if I may call you that, how do you know all these things about me? I never really told you my full name, and I never told you that my husband is a lawyer. How did you know that he hit me with a pen in his hand?”

“Like I said, it was just a dream. You can watch TV if you wish.” Paul rolled over in his bed and pulled the covers up over his face as if he was either trying to hide from the world or the flickering lights overhead.

“There’s still something on your mind. What is it?”

Paul sighed again. I could tell that he was trying to decide whether to tell me or not. He was looking straight in to my eyes, and it looked as if he was going to say what was really on his mind. “If the nurses come by, tell them I left AMA.” Paul proceeded to get out of bed and close the curtain between us for privacy. I heard the sound of tape ripping, as well as other medical-related sounds, and when he opened the curtain again, he was fully dressed in a set of worn scrubs he had retrieved from the bag containing his personal belongings. Just as he was about to speak again, a nurse came in to check in on us in her rounds.

“Doctor Millard, what on earth are you doing out of bed?” the nurse exclaimed to Paul as she rushed to his side to help steady his shaky balance. “Your tox screen is horrible, your BAC was through the roof, and you’re severely dehydrated. Get back in bed, I’m calling your doctor.”

Paul looked at the nurse and tried to puss her aside with what little strength he possessed at the moment, which she easily countered with little effort. “I’m checking out AMA Liz. If I’m gonna feel the way I do, I’d rather I’d be at home than at work.”

“You’re not at work.”

“I work here, so therefore I am.” Paul started to pack a few other items into his bag.

“Your department is downstairs.”

“Same building.”

“You’re jeopardizing your career. You’re already at odds with the administration.”

“I don’t care.”

“Your patients do.”

Paul stopped packing for a brief moment and looked at the nurse. “My patients are all drug addicts and homeless people. Do you think it really matters? Half of them are unconscious or high when they meet me. I tell them to stop what they are doing, tell them that if they don’t they will die. Guess what? They just keep doing what they are doing. I offer them rehab. Six months later they’re back on the streets. What I’m doing doesn’t matter and it isn’t helping anyone. Goodbye.”

I saw Paul take his bag and leave the room; the nurse just shook her head and watched him walk away before cleaning up the mess of bedding and tubing he had left scattered about the room. I had gotten to know her throughout the day, and she was a caring and compassionate professional, one who took pride in her work. I could tell that Paul’s outburst had shaken her nerves.

After she left, I found myself alone in my room again, left with my own thoughts, the flickering lights, and the sounds of the busy hospital all around me. The snow was falling harder now, the wind whistling through the cracks in the seals of the all-too-old hospital windows, reminding me of how alone I had become in my time in Chicago. At least I’d finally see my family soon.

Sara, Chapter 05 - Inquiries

2006-09-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

Title: Inquiries
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: second draft
Category: fiction, short-story, chapter 05 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Warnings: drinking, drug use
Summary: Paul meets Sara at a local dive bar near County General after Paul's suicide attempt. Both end up helping each other to the hospital after Paul drinks too much and Sara sprains her ankle badly.

~~~~~

05.) INQUIRIES

The city is cold at night; the quiet darkness lays its rest over the people who live normal eight to five lives and work normal eight to five jobs. Most people that I see walk past my alleyway do not know the underbelly of the Chicago nighttime. Most just drive to work, read documents and type reports close to their heavens in the high rise office buildings pretending their lives are better because they work closer to the angels. The drive their four-wheel-drive SUVs home to a nice family, have steak and asparagus for dinner, watch some television beamed from the heavens and to their satellite dishes, and then go to bed for the night to wake up again the next day in their two hundred thread count Egyptian cotton sheets purchased online from Saks Fifth Avenue. Most people do not see the true city of Chicago, the one that wakes up when the office towers that line our horizon go quiet, go cold.

Be it eight or eighty degrees on any night, it is still cold. Normalized humanity leaves our city at five, eleven on concert nights, and our real world begins. Women come out to play with men, luring them into their traps for riches and rewards a normal person would blush to think about. Men come hunting, looking for their newest meal of lust and blood, money and conquest. And all other denizens of life not quite defined by words come crawling out of the woodwork looking, haunting, for their next hit of the drug of their choice, whether it be sex, alcohol, or any other addiction they might crave.

The average worker in Chicago comes and goes with the demands of their employer, never seeing, experiencing what is really around them. Driving to work, they see building after building, never assuming what truly lies within each. True, some people, the dreamers, the creative, ponder and discuss what could be within the world of the darkened sky, the neon illuminated street corners haunting their dreams until their battery operated designer alarm clocks wake them up at five in the morning to begin the day anew. They are the ones that could join our world, if only they were willing to give up those same homes and dreams; give up their material possessions that sustain them through their workdays, workweeks. They are the ones that give us a voice, a face. Dreamers dream, creators create. Without them, no one would see what lies beneath the world they work in, creating the framework of a kingdom of misrealities that exists, at times, only in the crack-riddled minds of the court jesters that work hard to sustain only their most meager of lives. No one sees them except the dreamers.

This is my Chicago, that world which does not sleep, and tonight it’s extra cold, the city having just begun to dig out from the recent blizzard. It is the Chicago of the homeless, the drug addicts, the abused, and of the dreamers running to a new reality. It is the Chicago that I have come to understand and love. It is the Chicago that will destroy the normal folk, the kind persons who attend church every Sunday. Our worlds do not blend together well, and never will, without tragedy and heartache.

It’s my Chicago, the Chicago of the underworld, and I still found both tonight.

Every night, after catching dinner at St. Anthony’s, the outreach center a block away from the alley I live, I hit the town in my finest gear, my only gear really, looking for my next inspiration to not feel life. Tonight, I chose to stay close to my little dwelling on this earth and go to the bar in front of where I live, Big Eddie’s.

Let me tell you a bit about Big Eddie’s. When I first came to this neighborhood three years ago and found this specific place to live, I liked it. It was at that point, probably the worst pizza establishment in the beautiful Windy City. I feasted on left over pizza crust every night thrown out by the cooks into the Dumpster in my alleyway. As pizza goes, it was horrible, but as what I could get was mine and mine alone, I figured it to be the best. Life behind Big Eddie’s was good.

Then one day, there was a police raid, and everyone in and around the establishment ran. Turns out that the restaurant had been a cover for illegal gambling, which had been okay, until the police chief lost at poker there one night. That’s what sparked the raid. A few months later, new management had taken over, kept the name, and turned the little pizzeria into the newest dive bar in the city, ripping out the happy red plastic paneling and leaving dingy, bare walls that would soon be stained with every form of liquid imaginable. It didn’t sit well with those of us living from pizza crust to pizza crust.

Tonight, I would be spending my time haunting the dark and dingy corners of this fine drinking establishment, drinking, smoking, and probably doing more. I was looking forward to it after spending the day and last night confined to the bright, clean, sacred interior of St. Anthony of Padua Outreach Center.

Deep down though I knew my mother would have disapproved. She would have said to me, “Princess, you are a smart girl. Do not use your body the way I have, do not do the things I have done.” Or, at least, I hoped she would have said those things. She did what she did to get away from the style of life that I enjoy living.

Yes, enjoy. There is a sense of freedom that comes from owning nothing yet knowing how to get the things that you need. Waking up and knowing that you can do anything you wish to do, well, it doesn’t get freer than that. My mother had been told her entire life to embrace the middle class way, which had led to her destruction. She was fearful of waking up one day to the realization that her life was left with nothing. I have come to view that as being simpler; a truer way to live. The search for the truth comes first from simplicity.

The evening started out well enough. Plenty of people to buy me free drinks, plenty of people just in the mood to be kept company, just talking. I could wander from person to person just saying hello, asking how their lives are going, guiding them in their pursuits of happiness. Lingering with one person would tell me their life stories, and it was always the same story: the loved, they laughed, and then they lost. Some lost people, others lost possessions or jobs, and others just lost their hearts in the simple act of thought. I find people fascinating. No matter how different a person thinks they are, I find that they are forever searching for the same thing as everyone else: the thing that completes them. Nights like these were the nights I liked. It was easy to get high and even easier to get wasted. I didn’t have to think, I didn’t have to feel. The drugs freed me from the confines of my primal emotions

The usual clientele were in full swing around ten o’clock when a new face walked in, a fresh face. Usually, we saw the same people come and go, in and out, regularly haunting the tavern until they were told not to drink anymore for the night, passed out, or the bartender started replacing their vodka with water in his usual effort to save even more money. This was his usual motus operandi here, which is why I stuck only to the pre-bottled beer, which I insisted on opening on my own. If you wanted to be safe, smart, and know what was in your body, that was the way to go, as it was hard to sneak something into factory-sealed bottles. Last thing I would ever drink was their whiskey.

Returning to our newest patron though, I could see that even though he was fresh-faced to the naked eye, a deeper look showed us all a familiar world of hurt and pain. He was here for a reason, and he chose this place in general to follow through with that reason to try and find his sanity. I had never seen a person in such emotional pain before, pain that is normally hidden from the world through thick layers of flesh and scorn. His pain however was on the surface. Either it was fresh pain, or he had been hurt so many times that he wanted just to give up.

There was something else different about him as well: he wore scrubs.

Now, I knew that there was a hospital nearby, and I’m sure that I’ve probably been there a few times myself when things had gotten pretty rough. I’m sure someone has tried to convince me to go into rehab there as well, and I’m sure I’ve left the building against medical advice. Fine hospital, serves us well here in the neighborhood, I just don’t want to end up there ever.

White-collar professionals rarely interact with my brethren on a regular basis, unless they need something. For example, if they need their toilet fixed in the middle of the night or they need to dispose of some documents of a certain, sensitive nature. Then, the white-collar folk find the blue-collar folk, pay them off, and we make sure to get the job done, for the right price. Why, outside of that and maybe church, we interact is beyond me. It is two separate communities living life together in the guise of the confines of a city, state, country, or other political boundary. Besides, it always comes down to politics.

As I stood up from the booth I was in, I felt the hand of my current companion brush my arm and the word, “Sugar,” whispered from his drunken lips. I wanted to know more about the man that had just arrived, but my current companion needed company first. So I stayed where I was and just watched the man down his liquor with passing inhibitions. Finally, my companion realizing I was distracted, I was alone to investigate this new stranger to our lifestyle.

I got up and eased into the character I wanted to portray as I sauntered over to the bar confidently, finding a spot near the man that I could edge into. As I got closer, I began to see more of whom he was. He was middle aged, but the world had zapped the life from him prematurely, and made him look fifteen years older than he really was. His eyes flashed my way and showed an incredible icy blue, numb to all thought and emotion.

I edged in next to him and found some spare change in my pockets left as tips from patrons who thought I was a waitress just checking up on them. I looked the stranger in the face, put the money on the bar and ordered, “…whatever this man is having, and a beer, unopened” never breaking eye contact with the mysterious man in scrubs. I could see he was judging me, wondering what I was doing invading his life, invading his pain. Truth was, I had enough of watching him wallow in his own misery and I wanted to know why someone in doctor’s scrubs would frequent a slum of a joint like this one.

“If you’re trying to get anything from me, forget it.”

Never breaking eye contact, I picked up my beer and opened it. “I’m not trying anything. The look on your face says you could use another, just as I wanted another beer.”

He sighed and gave me a look to try to push me away, adding, “I’m old enough to be your father kid, so go home. Your probably not even old enough to be in here.”

“Mister, most of the people in here aren’t old enough to be here, but we are anyway. Don’t let age stop you from anything. Now drink your whiskey.” I took another sip of my drink, wondering what his next reaction would be. Would he get up and walk away, would he tell me to leave him alone, or would he buy into my pathetic hook and open up to me? Judging by the number of drinks he already had, it would probably be the last. He looked back at me, this time into my eyes, and I could tell that he was wondering the same things as I was.

After what seemed like an eternity, he put down his cigarette and held out his hand to me, saying gruffly, “I’m Paul. Why are you really here?”

Why was I there? It looked like Paul wanted to think I was after money, alcohol, or even drugs. He wanted to think that I was just another person in a chain of persons who only wanted to use him, leaving him a crumpled-up mess thrown aside and forgotten in the end.

“I’ve seen you before kid, at work. I do know you, and I know your history. I know you’re a drug addict, and probably an alcoholic,” he stood up, abandoning his drink, “It was a mistake for me to come here tonight. Goodbye.” He started to walk off, patting his pockets as if to make sure that I didn’t steal anything from him. Not that it looked like he really had anything that was important to him. Just as I thought he was leaving for good, he turned around and yelled at me, “Kid, gain some weight. You don’t need to develop anorexia too!”

“Wait!” I yelled and ran after him, dodging through the mischievous crowd and thick smoke from several forms of chemical implements. Paul just stood there in his spot, staring at the door ahead of him, shoulders slouched and head tilted as if wondering what I would do next. Just as I was about to reach him, a waitress stepped out in front of me, tripping me in my path. I must have let out a scream, because next thing you know, Paul had turned around and was rushing to me.

“Ow!” I grimaced once I had landed on the black, slime-covered floor. I slowly spun around to look down at my ankle, which had turned in at an interesting angle and swollen to the size of a large grapefruit. “I’m okay, don’t bother,” I said to the drunken crowd gathering around me to gawk while trying to get up unassisted. I noticed three things at that point. The first was that when you fall in a bar, people are reluctant to help. Two, I could not put any weight on my ankle. Three, Paul was now standing above me watching my every move.

“I’m a doctor, let me look.”

I looked up at him and blocked him from reaching me. “You’re drunk.”

“You’re high.” Paul quickly replied, ignoring the world around us now.

“So are you. I know what else was in that whiskey.” I had to stop him. There was no way he was going to touch me after drinking that concoction from the bar labeled as “whiskey.” Just no way.

It must have worked because Paul had stopped in his tracks, momentarily diverted from my ankle to whatever possibilities that now were mixing in his body. He sighed and looked at me, as he knew I had him. He had the choice of looking at my ankle knowing he was unfit to practice medicine at the moment, asking what was in whatever he spent the last couple hours drinking, or just walking away. I didn’t know which would be safest for either of us, and as I could tell the bartender’s secret ingredients were working, neither did he.

Paul’s turn to speak, and just as I had suspected, he chose one of my choices: he walked over to my ankle bent down to look at it and asked, “What exactly was in the whiskey?”

By this point the crowd had dissipated from around us, my accident no longer interesting as one of the other, regular patrons had started a shot contest at the bar with another in an attempt to win back a girlfriend. Paul was examining my ankle now, asking me to move it in different directions, not satisfied in what I was really unable to do at the moment.

"You need an x-ray."

“I can’t pay.”

“Just use a fake name like everyone else does kid. Lie to the system just like the rest of your neighbors on the street. Make it so we can’t find you ever again.”

“You found me Paul, and to answer your earlier question, rohypnol, iced tea, and maybe some whiskey if you were lucky. Out here it’s cheaper and easier to get this way. You might want to make your way to your own ER soon before you black out.”

Paul was obviously annoyed now. He had come to this dive joint to escape his life, drown his white-collar sorrows in cheap booze, and to be nonexistent, hidden from the images this city projected onto the world; the image he had unwittingly become a part of when he signed his first contract at County General. Now, he was starting to feel the effects of the cheap booze/drug cocktail combo he had imbibed in earlier as it was getting easier for me to convince him of what he should do.

“You leave now, walking away from here without going to your fancy hospital to get your stomach pumped, you’ll end up lying facedown in the gutter in the middle of winter, lost in the slums of Chicago. Who knows what will happen then? Who knows where you’ll end up, who you’ll end up with?”

Paul had stopped examining my ankle, distracted by the thoughts I had just put into his head with my speech.

“Paul. You told me your name tonight. Why?”

He looked at me, wondering why he did start to open up, and responded to me with another question, “Why shouldn’t I just have the bartender call an ambulance and just walk out of here right now? Why should I stay with you here?”

“Because you need someone, or else you wouldn’t have come to the edge of the earth tonight into this bar to get drunk. You would have gone home, sulked, and probably laid on the couch, staring at the television until it was time to go back to work.” He continued to look at me, not adding in a word to our argument. “You chose to come to the last place you thought you’d be seen, the place that had the most painful look to it just so it would match the mood that is inside your heart right now. Unfortunately Paul, those of us here tonight actually enjoy this. This is our life here at Big Eddie’s; the forgotten circus of the underworld that surrounds your pristine and hermetically sealed sterile hospital. The building without feeling. I’m actually insulted Paul that you came here looking to be miserable, because, those of us here tonight are actually having a good time celebrating life, despite our outward image. So, if you want to be miserable, go ahead. Just don’t do it here.”

There, I had said it. He could assume all he wanted about me, but only if I could assume similar thoughts back at him. I wanted him to know that I was serious about being at this particular dive bar.

“I’m not miserable kid. I’ll help you to the hospital, but that’s it.”

“Thanks.” So much for helping him tonight. All I had done was push him away and make him realize how alone he really was. He started to help me up, and I felt the need to carry on a conversation, or risk a very long walk. “Paul, why did you come here tonight?”

“Is this to confirm that you’re correct?”

“I guess I just want to know, keep the conversation going.”

He thought a little while he helped maneuver me to the door. He really should have just called an ambulance for me, but I was too proud and he was too far under the influence of the whiskey from the bar. Either way, what I was about to notice would change our relationship.

“I wanted to think, be away from my life and everything it reminded me of. That’s why I came here tonight. I had something happen to me that changed me earlier tonight, three hours from now, and I don’t know if I want it to happen when that time comes.”

Three hours from now? I realized that I was staring at him, not even moving or attempting to walk. I looked down at his scruffy, three day old five o’clock shadow and saw a small metallic charm that mesmerized me; I wanted to reach out and touch it, but that would have been rude. Instead, I rested my free hand around the necklace on my neck, feeling the contours of the identical charm resting on my skin.

“Kid, I’m not going to carry you, keep up.”

“Paul, I think I know what happened to you.”

“Only in your dreams kid, cause that’s all that it was.”

“Where did you get that necklace?”

He stopped and looked at me, I held out my own matching necklace, the one that I thought was one of a kind, the one I thought had run in my family. He looked at it and touched his own surrounding his neck.

“I can’t.” He let go of me and started to walk away.

“Paul! I need your help!”

Paul was torn between the shock of the coincidence, seeing something thought to be one of a kind worn by a familiar stranger and knowing that whatever he had done and thought a dream might have actually been real. It seemed real enough to me when I first discovered what the necklace actually did, and I don’t blame him for suddenly questioning reality. I did too when it happened to me, and I just assumed it had been a bad hit of whatever I chose to inject into my veins that day. But after it happened, life seemed different, more important, but at the same time I found myself starting to question my actions. Before the necklace, I would have ignored Paul when I saw him walk into that bar. But because of it, I felt compelled to find out why he was there, and it must have been the same for him I hope.

“Paul, what did you want to change in your life?”

He turned and walked back towards me. He looked me in the eye; the shock of realizing that I knew almost exactly what happened “Everything kid. I wanted to end it all. So I did, and halfway down I thought of leaving the people around me, and realized that I couldn’t go through with it. So I said, ‘I don’t want to die,’ and I was back in time, in the afternoon, this afternoon. It’s crazy talk though, just ignore it. It was all a dream, nothing more.”

“Paul, I accidentally stepped in front of a car two days ago while wearing the necklace, too high to fully realize what I had just done. The church bell tolled nineteen times. I laid on that pavement bleeding to death with random onlookers watching, but I chose life, and ten minutes later I heard the exact same church bells toll and saw the exact same car drive in front of me. Either we’re both extremely crazy, or we both had a similar experience.” I could tell I was striking a chord with him. “What did she look like?”

He was about to answer when I forgot about my ankle and tried to take a step, yelling violent obscenities when the pain jutted up my leg, distracting both of us from our present conversation.

“Come on. We should both get to the ER.” He picked me up in one quick movement, carrying me in his arms like a father carrying his sleeping child to bed late at night. It was comforting, and I hadn’t felt this kind of care before in my life. I liked it; it was better than being high. I could learn to enjoy a relationship built on respect for each other, not on how one could use the other for their own enjoyments.

“Paul, why did you want to die?”

He looked into my eyes as he carried me to his hospital. “I guess I thought that I had nothing left in my life that mattered to me.”

“You’re a doctor though. That’s gotta count for something.”

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. Why the hell do you actually believe me?”

“Where did you get that necklace Paul?”

We stopped and I could tell that he was debating what to say next. If he were to choose one option, he would have deeply scarred me, but if he were to choose the other, I would have probably caught him in a lie.

“An old woman came in yesterday and gave it to me.”

An old woman? Was this my grandmother? Had she come to find me? Had she come to finally take me in? I had to know more. “Paul, did she look like me?”

Paul stopped where we were and closely examined me as if I were the answer to the puzzle he had been searching for. Something changed in his face, internal sorrow changed to some form of professionalism. “I’d ask you your last name, but I somehow think you won’t tell me.”

“Paul, what I’m asking is one of the most important questions in my life. Did she look like me?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. She said she was here looking for her estranged granddaughter. She wanted to make right what she had done wrong so many years ago. That’s when she gave me the necklace.”

“Oh,” I looked away into the distance, trying to ignore what I had just heard. After all these years she finally thought differently about her life, my mother, and me. Or did she just come here to mock me again for being the black sheep of the family? I would never know, the closest thing I had to an answer was wound around Paul’s neck.

“So kid, what is your real name anyway?”

“I never knew my real name. I was always thrown from foster home to foster home growing up. I was even adopted once when I was three, but it didn’t last more a few months. Paul, what’s your last name?”

“Millard. You really don’t have a last name?”

“Not an important one. It just reminds me of ownership, and I don’t like that.”

“That can’t be the real reason.”

I looked away. He was right. “Well, there’s a name I used to be called long ago, but it never really mattered to me.”

“Why not?”

“I never knew the person who gave me that name. She died years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that tonight. Don’t be. It’s all in the past anyway.”

“It’s probably still affecting you though.”

“Why? Because I live on the streets? I’m an alcoholic drug addict? No. that’s just what freedom is for me. That was all my own choice.”

“What do you do for…” I could tell he was going to ask about some vital record that was nonexistent and unimportant in my life. He just let the train of thought wander off into the cold air that surrounded us. “Never mind kid. Forget what I just asked.”

He carried me the rest of the way in silence, sometimes attempting to make small talk about the blizzard last night, or about little things we saw along the way. I could tell that he was lost in thought, his brain miles away from where we both were at the moment and the chemicals from the bar working to make it harder to concentrate on anything. Finally, he spoke up, staring into the air as if talking to a lost spirit, visible only to him. “All these years I’ve been working in this neighborhood, and I’ve only assumed what life might actually be like here. I thought it would be lonely, hard, and miserable. And yet, tonight I’ve seen that you really only do what you can to survive. Why have I been so selfish all these years?”

“You just needed someone to wake you from your nightmare.”

Paul looked at me, almost forgetting that I was there in his arms, temporarily disabled by my clumsiness. We had arrived at the ER entrance and he set me in an abandoned wheelchair.
“Kid, when we go in there, we probably won’t see each other again, but I want to know more about this trinket. How do I get in contact with you?”

“I live behind Big Eddie’s in a cardboard box. I eat my meals at St. Anthony’s.”

He was in shock again. Something that I had said caught him off guard.

“St. Anthony's?”

“You’ve heard of it then?”

“The dream that I had with the necklace. Was that real?”

“Do you mean the falling off a building? Was that a dream?”

“I guess so.”

“I’m not sure, but I think what you experience is real. Why?”

“It’s nothing. Here’s my card. We need to talk more about this, but we both need to get inside because whatever was really in that whiskey…”

“Rohypnol.”

“Right. I think its about to take full effect.”

With that Paul suddenly fell to the ground and several nurses came running out towards us after my calls for help. I hid Paul’s card in a pocket, saving it for later, wanting to know more about him. It was nice to have the conversation that we had that night, it was nice to meet a person like that, one who was not just using me for their next hit or as a surrogate friend. I like nice, I’ve never gotten much of it in my life.

I had sprained my ankle badly when I fell, and ended up having to go to St. Anthony’s for the night. The city is cold, but it’s not as cold anymore now that I’ve found someone I hope I can relate to, someone whose life is as miserable as mine, just on another level. I hope to see Paul again, if only just to talk and be there as a listener for him. They say that misery loves company, and we’ve just found each other’s, even if only for an instant.

Sara, Chapter 04 - Fallen Angels

2006-09-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

Title: Fallen Angels
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: second draft
Category: fiction, short-story, chapter 01 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Warnings: suicide attempt
Summary: Paul meets Sophie in his emergency room after the car accident. Sophie is reluctant to get treatment due to Robert. Paul has an emotional breakdown and ends up on the roof, where he has a chance to change his life.

~~~~~

04.) FALLEN ANGELS

It had been a rough day in my emergency room, and little did I know, but it was about to get rougher. The first blizzard of the season had come and gone, leaving the Chicago slums that surround County General more treacherous than the urban jungles of warfare that they had been before the ice and snow. How people could survive in that was beyond me, but somehow, they still did.

I had been seeing patients for a good portion of my afternoon shift, who either could not get to a doctor during the storm or needed to go to one because of it. Mostly. Of course during the storm, a majority of the city had shut down, including some of the emergency services, which made our lives here in my department easier than they normally would have been. However easy it was, the death of my patient yesterday in the evening still held its weight my shoulders and its gift around my neck; the patient gave me her necklace in one final act of kindness.

Now, the day anew and the snow having recently stopped, I found my ER flooded with the city’s ice-wounded and shivering ill. They came from all walks of life, from the homeless to the rich, although most of the latter had decided to stay at home or go to their own insurance-approved doctors offices.

“Dr. Millard, psych called about the consult in exam three. They can’t send a resident down until half past the hour.”

I looked at Gloria at the nurses’ station and did not envy her job. Gloria is our head nurse in the emergency room, and the mother of all of us doctors. My name may be listed as department head, but Gloria runs the show.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t. Stevens called in ill and Gregory still hasn’t made it out of the snow bank.”

“Thanks Gloria. Could you give the patient in exam three another dose of Ativan until psych can assess her.”

“Sure thing.”

I saw her walk away, float away, with the glory of angels. She had grown up in an abusive home in these slums, less than two blocks from here. She had been a patient in this very department countless times, and then her break: social services had been called on her mother and she made her way into the foster homes, being adopted after a year in her very first placement. She vowed to come back and help the people here, and she did. She was our very own angel of grace and mercy. It was because of her and the way she ran this department that I will forever be grateful to the nursing staff at this hospital.

Gloria was a blessing in disguise, and I am not the first to admit it around here. If there is a child who will not talk or cooperate with us, Gloria walks in and does her thing. With just a few kind words and a kind smile, Gloria heals. When a drug addict comes in looking for his or her next hit of Vicodin, Gloria is there questioning motives. Within a few minutes, the addict either leaves or decides to join a treatment program. It is Gloria who runs triage and it is Gloria who saves our souls in this small department.

It is Gloria that has made this job bearable for the length of time I’ve been a prisoner at it. It is Gloria that made my life bearable all this time since anything of any meaning had left me. If she were not married, I would have proposed to her long ago. If she had not sworn she would never fraternize with a doctor, I would have succeeded too. Forget it. I cannot dwell on what I do not have. I need to remember that the only thing I have is nothing, except for the necklace.

I went back behind the nurses’ station to Gloria’s desk and looked at the chart she had left behind; it belonged to a woman who claimed to be a resident of St. Anthony’s, the homeless shelter three blocks away. We often treat people who are in and out of there, looking for a new face to fall prey to their schemes. It wouldn’t work today, and Gloria was obviously trying to find a hole in this patient’s story. I looked at the chart and could see that things didn’t fit. The woman claimed to have fallen on the ice and wracked her wrist around a light pole; however, she was wearing new, expensive tennis shoes. One glance at that patient’s shoes told Gloria that this case was different.

“Dr. Millard, what on earth are you doing?”

I looked up and Gloria was standing over me, wanting her chair back.

“What’s the story on the woman in exam four?” I asked, referring to the St. Anthony’s chart in front of me.

“Something doesn’t add up with her. She’s probably with them all right, but as one of those rich volunteers. Think I saw her face in the paper once. Shoes are new, so are the clothes. Not a hair or anything else out of place but her wrist.”

I looked at her chart and noticed that she had been triaged into a lesser degree of need. Gloria had assessed her at a medium level, yellow, and there were three patients more serious than her. Normally, her condition would have warranted a lesser degree - green or blue even, depending on the day - but the empty story with questionable holes kept Gloria from ignoring her. I looked at the board behind us, which held the pertinent information about patients’ care and conditions. Other doctors in my department had taken the first three patients. St. Anthony’s would be my patient. However, wanting to know more first, I looked to Gloria to become my ally and my spy.

“Like I said Doc, something just doesn’t add up with her.”

“How so? Other than the clothes?”

“Her car keys were for a Lexus. Nikes were brand new. Don’t even get me started on her handbag. That was Prada!”

Gloria had been reading her In Style magazines again as she said the name brands as fluently as she could convey medical orders from my fellow doctors to her nursing staff. She really was an angel.

Looking back at the chart, I knew I needed Gloria to help me with this current patient. My mind kept wandering to the old woman’s death yesterday evening; it had shaken me more than I had thought because of the strange gift, and having Gloria at my side inspired confidence in my weak soul. If she had been scheduled last night when the woman had died, everything would have turned out differently. She would have seen what happened, gently walked me out of the room, and convinced me to pass the necklace on to the woman’s family, if and when we found them. She would have given me a mug of coffee, a tough word, and then sent me on my way for a cigarette, being sure to call the morgue to make sure I wouldn’t go down there at all. But she wasn’t here last night, and I’m actually appreciative of the way everything had turned out. She would have made sure I would have forgotten.
We walked to the room and I could see why my head nurse’s first sight of my patient had us wondering. Ahead of me on the gurney sat a woman impeccably dressed in her mid to late twenties. Since she wouldn’t give her age or name, we couldn’t tell for sure.

“Sweetie, this is Dr. Millard, he will be looking at your wrist today.” Gloria glided to the patient’s side. She called her “Sweetie;” this confirmed that no name had voluntarily been given.

“Ms?” I asked, trying my luck at what Gloria had already failed at.

The patient looked at me and then at Gloria, and shook her head in a fearful “no.”

“Look,” I sighed, my patience having worn too thin too long ago, “It would be a lot easier if you just told us your name and if we’ve ever seen you here before.”

The patient looked back at Gloria and shook her head again.

“She refused to give me a name Doc.”

I nodded back to Gloria. So much of what made us work so well together was the chemistry of camaraderie that had formed in our department over the years. So much was said between us just now without even trying, and more importantly, without our patient knowing. Looking back at the anonymous woman, I noticed towels and ice packs wrapped around her left wrist; its interior stained with blood. I asked her to remove the towel so I could examine it, and after trying not to noticeably cringe, I realized instantly that the force of hitting it while falling would not have done this unless there was something more seriously wrong with her. I thought of the slew of labs we’d have to do on her, I’m sure the lab tech would be thrilled. I looked again, and saw that a wedding band lay on her fourth finger. She was married, and after feeling a twinge of guilt, she didn’t want her husband to know. Or as it’s the twenty-first century, her partner.

“Well, this is a simple diagnosis that will require a complicated treatment unfortunately. We really will need to get your insurance information Ma’am as you will need surgery. Also, just falling on the ice would not cause this severe of a break. Are you sure that’s all that happened? Are you trying to protect someone?”

“No! I need to go home this afternoon.”

She speaks.

“Why Ma’am?”

“I just do.”

I looked at her again, this time in the eye to explain to her why she needed to stay, when I noticed what looked to be a fresh wound, maybe eight hours old at most, just starting to turn purple under a thick layer of carefully hidden make-up on her left cheek. I looked closer, and the patient, realizing that I noticed the cut, turned her head and started to get up to leave.

“Look. I’m just wasting your time. It was stupid of me to come here, and I can just drive across town to see my own doctor.”

I looked again at her wrist and saw the jagged edges of the bone sticking through.

“Ms, we need to get x-rays of your wrist. Is there any chance you might be pregnant?”

The woman had a detached look in her face. Something had happened.

“No, I’m not. I had a hysterectomy six months ago.”

“I’m sorry then.”

She looked really nervous, “Um,it would be better if I go elsewhere. I have insurance and it’s not too far to her office.”
I motioned to Gloria to catch her. I could not let her leave in this state. It was obvious that someone bigger and stronger than her inflicted the wound on her cheek. It was also obvious that she was hiding a lot from us that we needed to know.

“Miss, why don’t you just listen to Dr. Millard for the moment?” Gloria whispered into the patient’s ear, loud enough for me to hear.

The patient looked at me for guidance.

“You might as well sit back down. With the roads the way they are still, you’ll get as far as three blocks before you end up back here by way of an ambulance,” I said as assertively as I could adding another phrase under my breath no one was supposed to hear, “And waste more of my time.”

“Doctor Millard! I am shocked that you’d say such a thing right now.” Gloria had heard me.

“Does it surprise you? Shock you even that it bothers me that this obviously smart and rich woman here is too embarrassed to say what really happened to her? Wrist is broken, cheek was hit, and she’s probably anemic or lacking calcium if her wrist snapped that easily? Don’t know about you Gloria, but mine wouldn’t do that if I fell on the ice, and I doubt yours would either.”

The woman in Gloria’s arms looked nervously at the nurse, “I want another doctor.” Gloria tried to comfort her.

“Tough lady. I’m the only one here and if you think you can drive in this weather to the next one, then we have even bigger problem on our hands ‘cause psych isn’t answering my damned pages,” I barked at her. I didn’t know if it was a lack of nicotine in my bloodstream or what, but everything tonight had me more on edge than I normally was. In the past I had been relatively laid back, tonight was different and I didn’t know why.

Gloria shot me a look that could kill while she guided our mystery woman from St. Anthony’s back to the gurney with a kind caress on her shoulder. The patient looked down and attempted to hold out her wrist to me, wincing in pain when she realized she couldn’t. Knowing Gloria wouldn’t stand another outburst from me; I stood back and let her take control of this case today. I nodded for her to start on the history took her cue to stay out of her and the patient’s way for awhile.

“Sweetie, we’re here to help you, and the only way we can is by having you tell us what really happened today.”

I leaned against the door frame and crossed my arms over my chest, watching this scene unfold in front of me. Gloria’s first attempt was not working, and the kind, gentle game she was playing just reinforced the patient giving us wounded looks back. Finally, tired of watching all this, I did something I would normally never do.

“Gloria, get another monkey to treat this one. I need a cigarette!” and with that I walked away, leaving whatever troubles this patient had behind me to the care of Gloria, who was more qualified than a majority of the staff just from her experiences with me. Gloria could take care of this. She didn’t have an MD but I would have more than allowed her to use my credentials if she wanted to. I had taught her practically everything I knew in the nineteen years we had worked together; we started here less than a week apart from each other. Gloria knew what to do. Why did she need me just because of a couple of letters behind my name? Why should I waste my time with a patient when they express that they do not want my help? Why should I bother to coax them into accepting treatment when they will just be abusing themselves, or allowing someone else to do it for them, as soon as they walk out of here? I have better things to do with my time.

I ran to the resident’s room where my locker was and traded my lab coat for my winter coat. Feeling the pockets, I quickly found my pack of Marlboros and a lighter and started spinning them around in my hands as I quickly made my way up to the stairs to be alone. I did not want to be here. I could no longer function here. I wanted out, and this time for good. Just as I put my hand on the door handle to the stairwell, I felt a hand forcefully tug at the collar of my coat, keeping me from moving.

“Paul! What in God’s name…”

“Don’t believe in him.”

“You did once and I refuse to believe that faith leaves a person, even in the smallest form.” Gloria’s grip on my coat quickly became a hug of comfort. All of a sudden, I was her patient and she was putting me through her rigors I had seen used on most of my patients in our past.

“What I find amazing is that you still do believe in something.”

“Paul?”

“How long have we worked together? Nineteen years? How can you, do you even, continue to go to church every Sunday? Especially after all we’ve witnessed here?”

“That’s the reason I continue to go Paul, and you should too. Come with me on Sunday.”

“I stopped believing a long time ago Gloria; it’s too late for me.”

“It’s never too late to start again. Come with me Sunday.”

Turning around I saw her bright brown eyes smiling at me and I melted, I sighed, anger turning to frustration turning to emptiness. A single tear rolled down my cheek, anger overtaking me yet again, only this time it was over the fact that I had shown weakness. I wanted to believe in something bigger than me but found I could not. I tried, but failed. “I can’t Gloria, you wouldn’t understand.”

I looked around at the entrance to the stairwell and was glad that the stairs were hidden from anywhere that I could be seen by anyone other than the security officers on their little ten-inch television screens. They were probably watching talk shows on another screen anyway.

“What is wrong Paul?” She used my first name, which she reserved for times when we were alone together; trying to sort out the difficulties this world had left us with. I looked at her, and the tears started to flow more forcefully down my face and trickled onto my scrubs, making the teal a darker color than it had been before.

“Paul, do you really want me to give this case to another doctor? I can page someone down from upstairs. We’ll be referring her to Ortho anyway after her films come back.”

At that I stopped. What was I doing? Who was I kidding? I was crying. Crying! My father would have been ashamed had he seen me at this moment. His only son, crying! I stopped and before I could reassess the situation, Gloria spoke again.

“Paul. As a friend,”

I gasped. She was not a friend; she was the head nurse in my department. We did not see or speak to each other outside of work. She had always made sure of that. She was a colleague, and one that was traditionally below my status. Fuck. Everyone was traditionally below my status except the damned surgeons. Why couldn’t I, like other doctors, abuse my power? Maybe I was mistaken. She started again.

“Paul, I speak as your colleague. Are you able to handle this case?”

That was better. More professional. She should have known not to refer to herself as my friend. That title was reserved for the people whom had already left my life six months ago, and a year ago, and at random other stages throughout my professional career.

I could dwell on my past, but my present currently belonged to this hospital. I looked Gloria in her eye, in an attempt to lie to her, but she spoke before I could answer.

“She’s stable. Go get your precious cigarette, clean up, and come back.” Gloria gently patted my shoulder and walked away. She really was in control of the department.

After cleaning up and being refreshed by the nicotine surging back through my veins, I walked back to the ER nurses’ station and summoned Gloria to follow me back to exam room four. We marched in and the woman sat on the gurney. Hours seemed to have passed from when the patient had first been triaged, however, in reality it was only about a half hour. I smoke fast.

“I feel better Dr. Millard; I really don’t need to be here anymore.” She was frightened. Her husband must be coming to find her. I looked at her chart and noticed that a lot more had been filled in. And we have a name!

“Mrs. Tyradil, you have two injuries that need medical attention and a possible underlying condition that could be serious. Could you tell me first what happened to your wrist.”

She didn’t flinch in front of me. She had been uncomfortable, but now she seemed to understand that nothing bad could happen to her here. Gloria worked her wonders again. I felt comfortable knowing that I was back in my little corner of the universe.

“I was driving into town.”

“Why?” I had to ask. Gloria looked at me with her look that she gave me when I was being impatient. I shot a look back to her, trying to remind her that she would be doing the same if she were in my shoes.

“I was driving into town because I am needed at St. Anthony’s. I am a volunteer there and because I could not get off of work early, I had to wait until today to go in. I hit a patch of ice just down the street, lost control, and hit my wrist on the window frame of my SUV.”

I looked at her chart with the corrections Gloria made. Aside from the fact that my nurse had listed Mrs. Tyradil’s occupation as teacher, her story checked out. I wanted to know more though.

“Mrs. Tyradil?”

“You can call me Sophie.”

I smiled a little, my frustration breaking finally. “Sophie, how could you have worked late when the schools never opened yesterday?”

Sophie stopped and looked in shock at the curtain in front of her. She knew that I had found out her lie.

“There was a blizzard in case you missed it. What really happened Sophie?”

She was reluctant to answer. I saw Gloria walk up to her, put her hand on her shoulder and whisper something in her ear, making it seem as though both were the only two people in the world.

“I,” she cringed, “I had a fight with my husband. But it’s not what you think!” She had been too quick with that last sentiment, as if she was now used to saying it on a fairly regularly basis. Maybe if she continued to say it she’d actually believe it, or at least that’s what psychology teaches us.

Gloria looked at me and I nodded; she really did deserve an MD behind her name instead of RN, but then she wouldn’t be the same person. I looked back at the cut on Sophie’s face, the make-up had been washed away revealing an astonishing array of colors bruising the swollen skin around the gash her husband made.

“I take it he’s right handed, and was holding either a pen or a butter knife during this fight?” Sophie looked up at me in acknowledgement of the facts I presented.

“Pen. How did you know?”

“You told Gloria that this happened this morning, and I recognized your last name as one of the department heads here hired your husband after being picked up for a DUI after a fundraiser. Criminal law, right?” I purposely failed to mention that the specific department head was I.

“Yes. He didn’t want me to come into town because of the snow. But I didn’t want to be in the house with him for an entire day. Not today at least.”

I blinked, trying to find some emotional substance left that I could use to get me through this small lecture to my patient. “Okay Sophie. I need to examine your wrist and your face. It’s been too long since the cut happened on your face for us to be able to suture it, but we can get a plastic surgeon to look at it at some point, probably through a referral. Your wrist has me worried though. It’s a compound fracture, and you’ll need surgery to set the bone and clean the wound, it just won’t heal on its own as you wish it to. I’ll get Ortho down for a consult and they’ll take it from there. Labs should come back shortly, though you could have saved yourself the trouble of the needle if you just told us outright what had happened. You’ll be admitted, and we’ll need to contact your insurance company. I’m sure you’ll want to contact your husband as well.”

She didn’t look at me, but instead stared at a corner of the floor. “I don’t want that.”

I looked to Gloria, whose scowl kept me from my impending outburst. I was done caring for the day. I was done caring yesterday after my patient died. She finished what I could not do, and I walked out of the exam room, leaving what little part of my professionalism I had left in there as well. I looked at the board at the nurses’ station and saw we were caught up. Time for paperwork again, simple scut work that it seemed I was always stuck doing.

I turned around to go to my makeshift office in the resident’s room and Gloria was standing once again in my path. I began to wonder how quickly she actually moved around here and if there were in fact multiple copies of her in my department.

“Dr. Millard, may I see you in private?”

She meant business and I was in trouble. Never be in trouble with your head nurse, as it will only get you into more trouble in the long run. Especially if your head nurse was Gloria.

I didn’t say a word as I walked towards the resident’s room but I noted how quickly and closely Gloria followed at my heels. She was not pleased with my choice of locale as it was not her territory, but as I was still her boss, she did not have that much say in it. When we got in there, I motioned for her to sit down on one of the two chairs. She declined as I slipped into one and put my feet up, staring at her. I desperately wanted to peel off my shoes but knew I’d have to put them back on in a moment anyway.

“I’m sick and tired of your bad attitude today Paul. What has gotten into you? The death of a patient? We lose patients every day and it doesn’t affect you. Not like this. So, what has gotten into you? What is really going on?”

I looked at her, and for a fleeting second I wanted to tell her the truth. Tell her that I haven’t been happy since my best friends committed suicide. Tell her that I stopped feeling a long time ago. Tell her that I just wanted something simple from my life. I wanted to ask her for help, but I was not courageous enough. But she knew it all anyway, she was just waiting for me to finally admit it out loud to myself.

“Look Paul. What is going on? You’ve been a completely different person since Anna came back. I know she was your friend…”

“This doesn’t concern Anna. This doesn’t concern Frank!” I jumped up and yelled in her face, abruptly cutting her off before she could comment any further. It truthfully was them, their deaths, and the final act of kindness of a dying stranger yesterday, but I wouldn’t let it on, couldn’t let it on. I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her towards the door, adding a curt, “Get out,” before she left me alone.

I missed Anna and Frank, my best friends who abandoned me here alone. I missed my two daughters, and whatever lives they lead while they were a part of mine. I missed my ex-wife who was now showing off what my salary was doing for her somewhere in Las Vegas perhaps. I missed life, and I didn’t think I’d get it back.

Still wearing my lab coat, I went up to the roof of the building, looking for some solace, some sense of order in my life and cursing the fact that I didn’t at least grab the cigarettes and lighter. Probably better in the long run that I didn’t. If I could not find order at home or at work, maybe I’d find it elsewhere. I made my way to the stairs, my pager beeped; I turned it off and silenced it for good. I was at last going to finish off what I had intended to start last night. I was going to bring an end to my misery once and for all, joining countless others who had once endured such misery that pushed them to their final punishment. That’s all that death was in my mind now, punishment.

I clambered to the roof and found the place I had been standing the previous night, and wiped away what snow had fallen there since. I had to do this now or I would lose the juvenile courage I had finally gained again. Of course, without the idea of the pager beeping mid-jump, it would be easier. I felt along the waist of the scrubs for the small box and quickly threw it onto the roof behind me, allowing it to land in the snow. I wouldn’t need it anymore. Let the orderlies try to find it come spring. I was about to get up onto the ledge when a woman in a sleeveless white dress interrupted me.

“You have a choice you know.” She walked towards me.

“Psych ward is on fifth floor. I think that’s where you need to be lady.”

“No. You have a choice. What do you do now?”

“I finish the choice I made last night.”

“No, you would have jumped by now. You want to live.”

The woman was really starting to annoy me. I looked at her and noticed that she did not leave footprints behind her in the snow. Was I hallucinating? What was happening?”

I stood on the ledge and looked down. I realized I did not want to see the ground as I fell, so I turned by back to the open abyss behind me. The woman stood on the ledge next to me in the same position as I did. I could not see her breath in the cold, icy air. I looked into her eyes and saw a cold kindness that only years of knowledge and evil can give a person.

“Paul. You have a choice right now. Jump and end it, guilt free, and no final consequences when you meet Saint Peter, if that’s what really happens,” she was almost daring me, mocking me to react. “Or, you could walk away; go back downstairs to your job. Start anew with life. Patient coming in soon, it might be you. The choice is yours. Only you know what you are fully giving up.”

I looked her in the eye and took a few breaths and grinned, intent on not answering her with a single word. I couldn’t explain who she was, what she was, and the state of my sanity was beyond me caring. I wanted to get this done with; I didn’t need any more distractions. Instead, I lifted my left leg behind me onto the invisible step of death and pushed with my other. I was falling from the hospital roof, all hope abandoned long ago.

As I fell, the icy wind and air pulled the worst chill imaginable through my body. I was so cold that I was in pain. I didn’t want to feel in these final moments, and the only thing I could think about is what the nerves throughout my body were telling my brain: I was in immense pain. To distract myself from the physical feelings I was encountering in the fall, I realized I needed to think of something, anything. I thought of my job, and the countless numbers of patients I treated. They were my family, and they needed me. I thought of my coworkers, how they were really the only ones to understand me all these years. They were my family too, and we all needed each other. I didn’t want to know how Gloria would react to my death, or the rest of the hospital. Ironic really, in my end my last regret was leaving the one thing left in my life that mattered, even if in a negative way. My job finally meant something to me. I closed my eyes, regretting my fatal mistake, and heard myself meekly mutter a few simple words, “I don’t want to die.”

Instantly, I felt a warm cushioning feeling around my body and realized that I was covered with a thick blanket. I felt a presence over me and felt someone breathing near me. Suddenly a hand gently shook my shoulder and I opened my eyes. Gloria stood above me.

“Paul, are you okay? You were crying out in your sleep.”

I looked out the window and saw that it was snowing out again. I asked Gloria when it started up and she told me yesterday. My pager started to beep, it was the beginning of my shift.

“Paul, are you sure you are okay? You feel like you have a fever.”

I looked at Gloria who walked across the room to get me a glass of water and I smiled my first genuine smile I had smiled in a very long time. “I’m good Gloria.”

She didn’t catch on to the smile, or she thought it was from the fever I felt myself suffering with. “Well, drink this and I’ll get one of the other doctors to take this one. I’ll be back afterwards to fill you it.” She walked to the door.

“Wait, Gloria!” She turned around, slightly annoyed by the fact that I was keeping her from her work, “Can I go to church with you on Sunday.”

Gloria smiled “Are you feeling okay Paul? Do you want me to get someone to check you over?”

I took another sip of the water, my smile growing wider by the moment, “I feel great actually! Thank you.”

Gloria contemplated what I said, never actually having heard those words coming from my lips in the last several years. “Good,” and she walked out to tend to our newest patient.
Everything I had experienced was a dream; the breakdown in front of the patient, the feelings of self-doubt, Sophie Tyradil. It was all a dream. More importantly, I was still alive. As I finished the glass of water, I sat stood up from the gurney and felt something catch on the collar of my scrubs. I felt to feel what it was and my hand brushed a small cross necklace. Was it all a dream?

Sara, Chapter 03 - My Husband

2006-09-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

Title: My Husband
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: second draft
Category: fiction, short-story, chapter 03 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Warnings: abusive relationship, car accident
Summary: We meet Sophie, our final main character and final narrator. Sophie is on her way into Chicago to work at a soup kitchen the day after a blizzard. She is driving in after an argument with her husband and is reminiscing over her and her husband's lives and relationship.

~~~~~
03.) MY HUSBAND

I’ve always somehow been compelled to tell the truth. And the truth is that I’m driving alone in the wintertime, it’s snowing out, and the roads are slippery. No bother though, my husband bought me the best four-wheel drive vehicle he could find. It is a country road that has barely been ploughed, let alone sanded or cleared out enough from previous storms to be easy to drive on. No bother though, my husband made sure to try to convince me to stay home today; the blood trickles down my face lightly, like watercolor paint on canvas. “Paint, pain, one letter difference,” I say aloud as I touch another tissue to the wound, hoping it will stop bleeding for long enough that I can cover it up, hide it as I’ve hidden other things in my life.

“No bother though,” I say aloud as I confirm to myself that I have everything in my life. I have the freedom to do with my days what I want, not to have to work for slave wages and for administrators that would prefer me to be exactly like them. If I wish to sleep in, I may. If I wish to get up extra early and fix my husband something special, I can. I pain, I knit, I volunteer and do crafts. That is all thanks to my husband. I have money to spend on whatever endeavors I wish to pursue: the arts, academia, or just to help the people that cannot help themselves. I have a beautiful home in the country, two hours drive from inner city Chicago, which glistens with the morning sun, and the exterior is painted red, “Like the blood trickling down my cheek like a tear,” I whisper to myself as I touch my face yet again. But I can not think of that as my husband wishes me to think of only positive things.

But my husband, oh my husband. He is my reason to live everyday. I love him, and he loves me, he reminds me of that as he gently caresses the skin of my face every morning and pushes his hands into that spot in my back as we kiss, the one that makes me melt into his arm. He looks longingly in my eyes as he says, “I wish I could only to stay with you today…” his voice trailing off before he can find the real excuse keeping him home safe from the world. I kiss him on the cheek and he strokes my hair as he leaves me for the eternal day.

But not today.

Today, he decided to stay home from work, he claims because of the weather. However, I know differently. Last week there was a storm that was far worse and he gingerly walked out to his SUV, hopped in, and drove the two-hour commute to his office without second thought or incident. Today, I had plans at Saint Anthony of Padua, the homeless shelter I volunteer at. I have worked hard there, the years of my education pouring into the creations of programs to help the homeless of Chicago. Though I have not seen a cent, and more and more of my husband’s money pours into the place, I have received many great rewards. I have been in the papers, received grants, plaques, and all the notoriety that comes with saving Chicago from itself. I have hosted luncheons, banquets, and balls. I tête-à-tête with Chicago’s finest upper crust, all the while celebrating the rewards the city has given me.

I have received all those honors, but the greatest reward is friendship. Though I love my husband dearly, and he loves me in his own way, it seems I would otherwise be denied friendship without St. Anthony’s. Through this place, I have discovered a social life that I had been denied since leaving my family after college. There have been many men and women whom I have formed close bonds with here, and because of those bonds, they have been freed from their lives on the streets and now have homes and careers, livelihoods and goals. Without our friendships, none of us would have survived.

There is one woman in particular whom I met at St. Anthony’s, a woman who could easily be me and it is that which fascinates me most about her. She, like all the others, lives on the streets, but there is a difference. She has this sort of grace to her step, and an air about her as if she knows something that the rest of us don’t. She has a knowing smile to her face at all times and walks tall with confidence. It is as if she is royalty, owning the world, and yet in reality she owns nothing. I asked her one time if she had any place to go, any family that missed her. “No,” is all she could reply, looking down and fingering the stitching in the neck of the turtleneck she wore that day, her smile changing briefly to doubt and worry. She is an old soul, despite being nineteen.

Too much to think about, too much to feel, Robert Tyradil had changed my life forever. I look again at the road ahead of me and wonder if I should not turn around, go back home to where I started, go back home to my husband. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like without him. I wonder where I would have ended up had I not met him back in college through my sister’s neighbor. He had been kicked out of his family’s home for refusing to work in his father’s business after college, a small subsidiary of Halliburton. He was an idealist at the time, and had started out as religious studies major at Harvard. By the time I met him, he was sleeping on my sister’s neighbor’s couch and enrolled in law school, despite his best efforts to do otherwise. I was a freshman education major at Boston University. He came over to check on us after the power went out in our apartment building. I had seen him around the building fairly often, but that was the first time we had really spoken. I invited him in and we ended up spending the rest of the night talking, the power having returned long before he finally left at three in the morning. We ended up dating until graduation, and that’s when he accepted a lucrative position in Chicago. Though the rest of my college career had seemed empty without him, I found that with time I thought of him less and less until he was just a distant memory of my past forgotten.

I had known little the day we met, and I feel like I know even less now. Unlike the woman at the St. Anthony’s, I am a young soul, forever bound to and dependant on the knowledge of the other souls around me. Though I am a teacher and know a fair amount, I still view myself as a life-long student that I had thought survived the profession. I was the model student for my own students. I was forever curious about the world around me and I forever wanted to seek out the truth that existed with the scholars that walked the world before my time, dedicating my life and world to the ever-encompassing pursuit of knowledge.

Instead, I was here, in the middle of the country driving into downtown Chicago, driving what would normally be less than a two-hour commute that was now more than doubled because of the snow and the ice. I looked in the mirror, the sight of blood still trickling down the side of my face did not surprise me any more; I had long since given up on trying to get the wound to stop bleeding. I should have stayed home, but then again, part of me knew that there was no way that I could, not after this morning. Though I love my husband dearly, I cannot spend much time near him, except when he is asleep. Of course, when he is asleep, I am supposed to be as well. Does time together count as such if neither person is able to realize it?

I turned on the radio and listened to the sound of the announcer tell of snow emergencies for the entire area surrounding Chicago. Lake effect snow had compounded with the two fronts that had converged overhead. One was an Alberta Clipper, bringing cold, chilling weather from Canada while the other was the tail end of a late-season hurricane that had recently hit the Gulf Coast. The three forces acting together became one force of destruction on the landscape that surrounded me.

So here I was, driving down the deserted back roads to a city that was for all practical reasons, closed. I knew I was needed even more that day, even if it meant facing the elements and God. I remembered back to the spring break of my freshman year that Robert and I took the trip to England. We had gone to a pub and he had too much to drink. I stopped drinking that night after my first sip, I was too used to the sober life I led back in the states, and apparently so was Robert. He handed me the keys of the rental car and asked me to drive us back to the hotel; in reality we should have just called the taxi. I had never driven on the left side of the road, he had as had made this trip several times in the years before we met. Nervous, I accidentally pulled to the right and almost got into an accident, which poor Robert would have felt the impact of. He quickly took the wheel from me after I panicked and guided the car back to the proper lane. I can’t believe how dense I was. I had ridden with him all week and it just seemed wrong to be in the left-had lane. I failed him. I was ignorant and in the moment of trying to find safety, I had forgotten that I was no longer in America, land of opportunities, land of freedom.

Freedom.

That’s what my life had become about lately. The pursuit of freedom. I had it growing up, being allowed to make decisions that were far beyond my years. I cannot believe that my parents allowed me so much freedom growing up. It was as if I could do no wrong. Of course, I couldn’t allow myself to do wrong either. When given the choice of what I where I wanted to go to school, I always chose the better choice. When given the choice of what I wanted to study, I always pursued the harder course. When given the choice between a life of parties and fun or a life devoted to my studies, I chose studies. I did not know why I chose the choices that I did, but I did. Looking back, it was probably the wise way to go; I knew how to get out of my life it’s every bit of potential it had.

I had just finished my second year of teaching and several of the teachers I worked with and I had planned to go to a national teacher’s convention in Chicago that summer. I loved teaching and found myself to be quite successful at it early on; my classes had always scored high on the standardized tests and I was proud of how even lowest-scoring students had managed to catch on to what I taught. Going to this convention would make me learn and think differently about my life and I looked forward to bringing back what I learned to my classroom.

After several successful and tiring days of hours of lectures and activities followed by evening of entertainment, I found myself telling my cohorts that I wanted to just stay in for one night. They obliged, leaving me alone in our hotel room. After trying in vain for either sleep or something to watch on TV, I changed back into something other than pink bunny pajamas, grabbed my room key and wallet, and found my way to the hotel bar. When I arrived, a familiar face from a forgotten past started at me from across the way.

Robert Tyradil was sitting alone, staring into his empty martini glass, the seats surrounding him long abandoned to other opportunities in other places far away.. When I first saw him, he didn’t’ seem to see me, the years having changed us both. I walked into the bar further and saw misery in his eyes, I saw pain and hurt, and he looked as if he needed to be comforted. I approached him cautiously, not knowing how he would react after our absence of over five years from each other. However, there was just something about him that called to me, something that teased me with his attention. I then realized that he knew I was watching him.

“You don’t have to keep staring. Here,” he motioned to the empty stool next to him, not giving away if he recognized my identity. “Have a seat.”

I moved in cautiously, not sure if what I was doing was right or not as I found I could no longer read him the way I used to, my naivety keeping me from knowing what to do. It is a character flaw that I have always possessed and wished to abandon long ago, however, the more I try, the harder I find that it is to do so. While it was something that helped teach young children manners and wisdom, it is something that later made me the laughing stock of my husband’s parties.

“Hi,” I whispered quietly in his direction and smiled a small, closed smile.

“Hi,” he smiled back, the misery in his eyes melting away. “How have you been Sophie?”

“Good. I’m a teacher now.”

“I knew you would make it.”

“How are you? Still in law?”

“Yes. I even own my own practice now. I was supposed to meet a client here hours ago, but he never showed up. What are you doing here?”

“Teacher’s convention,” Robert had motioned for the bartender to bring me a drink, but he did not know what I would want. I ordered a soda and Robert smiled.

“Still a tea-totler Sophie?”

I nodded.

“When did you get into town?”

“A few days ago. You look good by the way,” I had lied. Robert was too thin again, much like he was in the pictures I had seen of him in his early college career; I wondered if the stress of his own practice had gotten to him or if his eating disorder had returned.

“You look good too Sophie, great actually,” he smiled, the look of emotional pain in his eyes overtook me momentarily. “When do you go back to wherever it is you call home?”

“Boston?”

“You got into their district? Congratulations.”

“Thanks. We go back Sunday afternoon.” It was Friday night.

“You should have looked me up sooner. I assume my secretary told you I was here?”
I smiled apologetically, “It’s only by accident that I’m here, this is the hotel I’m staying in.”

“Sophie? I want you to know that I never stopped loving you.”

With that sentence, I knew I had the old Robert back. Two weeks later I resigned my teaching position and moved in with him in Chicago, finding a teaching job here a year later. He possessed me that night we met again, enveloped me even, and I’d make the same decision again if offered the chance. I’d always make that decision.

Two years and six months later, our child died in my womb. This brought on months of silence and confusion, months of attempting to deal with the loss on my own as Robert retreated into his work, and his love became harsher every day. His love that bound me in his world that he created for me, his love that had sustained me as this new person from the moment we met again in that bar, even if it had changed over the course of our marriage. He created the love for his world all on his own out of his need to control his life. The day our child died was the day I learned his secret, one he swore to himself that he would not tell until he was committed to another person in vows, on that he was greatly ashamed of: he was abused as a child.

Robert grew up in a household that to the outside eye was a perfect world. He was groomed into a life of society and privilege that he still is a member of today. His family had money, opportunity, control, and power. Robert’s father, already early in Robert’s life, decided that his son would become a corporate lawyer and take over the family company. His parents were personal friends of the Cheneys and the Bushes even. They were old money in a country where money spoke in an industry that would listen.

Robert’s father continued to make decision after decision for him. When he disobeyed, he was hit with an old leather belt his grandfather used on his father. When he did not get perfect straight A’s, he was grounded for a month. His father controlled his life, his future, and his destiny.

As high school progressed, Robert soon discovered the restrictions his priveledged life imposed upon him. He knew that if he could not find ways to control his life that he would quickly self-destruct unless he could find for himself a choice. His school offered many extracurricular activities that interested him and he wished to join. His only problem was convincing his father. His sophomore year he told his father that he wanted to be on the debate team, but it traveled too much, and his father would not allow him to go to the debates after school. Besides, it conflicted with all of the sports he was in. Robert’s father made sure that his son was a starting athlete on whatever varsity team he selected for his son to play on at his very elite private school in Boston, including the wrestling team, which his father personally made sure he trained for. One problem, Robert was too heavy for the weight class his father wanted him to be in.
Thus started four years of binging and purging. Four long years of ballooning weight, four long years of battling the very sustenance that was needed to survive. Robert, suddenly finding a reason and a way to control his life, became bulimic, and when that didn’t work after awhile, and he had convinced himself that food was the enemy, bulimia transitioned to anorexia. He finally hit rock bottom finals week his second semester at Harvard and he collapsed in the middle of an oral speech final. Thankfully for the reputation of the family, his father was able to buy off his professor to give him an A, and all was forgiven over the summer at a treatment facility. The day he collapsed was the day he decided that enough was enough and he was going to go his own way in life. He would still continue at Harvard as he told himself he wanted to do, but he would do something with his life that would help him help others. He suddenly was finding his own ways, healthy ways, to control his life.

If only it would last.

Religion had always played an important role in his life, and he always wanted to become a theologian. He told his family that he would stay at Harvard as they wished but that he would enroll in their Religious Studies program. He presented to his father a detailed plan to open a non-denominational women’s resource center that would create a safe place for underprivileged women seeking refuge where they could discover the power of spirituality and religion. He was kicked out of his family home that night and wasn’t welcomed back until he had been accepted into Harvard Law. When I met him, he had been kicked out again for refusing to work in the family business after he graduated.

I come to the on-ramp for the interstate and find that it is closed. I have driven three hours, and am almost to St. Anthony’s, so close to my goal and yet unless I can find an alternate route, I will need to turn back. That would be three more hours driving in this weather; though I packed an overnight bag just in case; it is still a far drive to a decent enough hotel though. Robert would call and set up a room for me at the Marriott if I so desired, because he really does love me and care for me, but that would be a two-hour drive across Chicago. I don’t want to drive anymore.

I asked Robert one time why he chose to live so secluded out in the countryside. He told me that it was because living in the country offered us the freedom just to live and not to have to put on an air of images for our neighbors. If we did not feel like cutting the lawn, we did not have to. We could paint the house any color. We could live the way that we wanted to. However, living in the country, we are so remote, so isolated from other people, that the forty-acre farm we own feels more like a forty-acre prison. A prison without walls. On days that Robert is gone and I am at home, I wander aimlessly around the house, just looking for something to do. I cook, I clean, and I eventually end up just rearranging the furniture. I wait up late for Robert to come home, and when he does, he is too tired to eat. He yells, and I clean up, meeting up with him in our bedroom where he apologizes, night after night. I tell him that I wish we could move to a nice apartment in Chicago, much closer to the lives we live there, and he reminds me of how much he enjoys the freedom. It’s always the freedom.

As I’m staring off into the distance, thinking of my husband, I realize that I’ve been sitting in the middle of the ice-covered intersection for over five minutes. I go to move the car and find a new path to my destination. I often avoid going through the city, as the highway is quicker, and the tunnels are clear. However, today I am forced to move straight ahead into the urban jungle that I have rarely navigated on my own, without him.

Things are going well enough now, I am remembering my way on my own and the city streets are clearer than those far out in the country. I know that if all else fails, I can use the GPS system Robert installed for me or call him and he will direct me through the city, either way he would know and find out about what happened. I turn left, right, come to a stop. And just as I am nearing my destination, I hit a patch of ice. Quickly I attempt to recover from it, but instead, the wheels spin out from under me and I am freely sliding in circles on the streets of Chicago. I hear the voice of my father who taught me to drive back home telling me to follow through with what the vehicle wants to do, not what I want to do. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes like hours, and I am feel myself hardly able to breathe as I attempt to keep my body safe.

My body lunges with the vehicle around in circles as I realize that I have completely lost control of the vehicle. My hands shake violently and I sweat with cold panic. What do I do? I am now careening down the abandoned city street like a toboggan on an ice field, not slowing, but spinning out of control. I can no longer hold onto the steering wheel, so I make a bold move, and let go, shifting into neutral in an attempt to slow down and come to a final resting place.

As I finally let go of the steering wheel, giving my fate over from Robert to my God, my arm shakes loose from my tightened grasp and it lashes my wrist against the windowsill, adding an earth-shattering crack of bone and sudden pulse of blood down my arm and hand. Before I fully realized what had happened, that I had just broken my wrist, the car came to a stop. Only a couple of minutes had elapsed since I started to drive through the icy labyrinth of the city.
I sat in the driver’s seat, just barely thinking enough to know to put the car in park and couldn’t move. I had just broken my wrist; I had stained the tanned leather interior red of the SUV my husband bought for me. What was I to do? He warned me not to get into an accident, and I did. What would he do? I was scared. I wanted him to be there, to hold me, love me, but I also feared for what he was capable of. Up until now I had only disobeyed him on minor things that did not matter. Now, I disobeyed him, dented the door to his vehicle, and broken his wife’s wrist, my wrist.

Thinking first of my husband’s possession, I managed to get out of the SUV and look for damage. A large dent greeted me where I had hit a pole at one point. He would be angry about that. He would be angry that I broke my wrist. He would be angry that I left. He would be angry that I did not heed his warnings.

Yet, he would be thankful too, and I would remind him of that. Later.

First though, my wrist needed attention. It was bleeding from the bone having pushed its way through my skin. The shock of the accident had managed to keep the pain at bay, however, the first aid and biology classes I had taken in my life taught me that I could not attend to this wound on my own. I had to abandon my destination and make way to the nearest hospital.

Surely I could go there? Surely Robert would understand?

I got back in my vehicle and carefully found my way to County General, a small hospital whose neighborhood grew up around it too fast, quickly making the small facility even smaller than it was in actuality. I looked through my purse and quickly found my insurance card was in my husband’s name. Though, in this case, it was not much of a concern, questions would still be asked that I could not bear to answer. My husband loves me! I do not want anyone to accuse him of anything! I could not go to the hospital or any doctor for help, not as long as anything could get back to my husband. Any connection would implicate him, and he is not bad. He does this all in love. The bruises, the scratches, the isolation. It is to keep me safe! If it were not for him, I would not have the life that I have. I would still be alone in Boston, a teacher, children my only company!

I looked back at my wrist, pain was beginning to envelop it and blood beginning to stain into the fibers of my sweater and the interior of the vehicle. There was no mistaking it. If I were to turn back, as so much of me wanted to, I would go home and face the wrath of my husband. He loved me, yes, but the more control he exerted over me the less he was in control of himself. He told me one time that when he was in high school he made a vow to himself that he would forever be in control of his life. He then said to me that same exact day, moments later, that if he ever lost control, or just began to lose it, that I needed to tell him and get him help.

Now was the time.

For ages, the other volunteers at St. Anthony’s had offered to set up a way for me to run away from the situation I had gotten myself into. Truth was, as much as I loved Robert, I also knew that in the end, he could easily be the death of me. Questions would always be asked by anyone, everyone. Even a routine doctor’s visit would put him at alert. I snuck away to a follow-up appointment where my doctor offered me a place to go to find help, get away. She offered me an escape, but I was too emotionally tied up in Robert’s world to take the lifeline she offered me.

People asked me why I put up with him for so long, why I didn’t go back to Boston at the first sign of abuse. My answer is easy. I was meant to be in Chicago for a reason, I just hadn’t found it yet. Part of me didn’t know where else I could go, or even how to go there, and it isn’t that easy to suddenly uproot your life and start anew. Robert controlled our bank account so that I had limited access to funds. He held onto my vital records, so that if I wanted to do anything, even get a job or open a savings account in my own name, I could not. I was locked into my life with him.

I pulled into the closest available parking spot to the emergency entrance, stopped the car, and carefully pulled out my cell phone. I had to help Robert. I had to help myself. I opened the phone, dialed the number, and let it ring through.

“Sophie?”

He had looked at his caller ID.

“Sophie, what is it?”

“I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

There was an angry sigh on the other end of the line. I was glad that he was currently so far away, but I had to tell him, as he would find out about my wrist and the door as soon as he saw me next. He would be irate about what I was going to tell him next, but there was no choice, he had to know. Had I just left him hanging, he would search for me, and the beatings would be much worse.

“Robert, I was in a small accident. There’s a small dent in the car door and I broke my wrist.”

There was silence on the other side of the line. I thought for a moment that he had hung up and was already in his car on his way into town, but instead, I heard a sigh. “Fine. We’ll talk later. The roads are too bad for me to do anything about it, and I can barely hear you to talk.”

“Wait Robert. Remember the day our child died?”

“Yes.” He sounded annoyed and obviously did not wish to talk.

“You told me about your childhood, and the vow that you made to yourself.”

“What does this have to do with breaking your wrist?”

“You need to reassess your life Robert. You’ve become your father.”

Silence, and then a beep sounded, ending the call and signaling his response to me. The abuse had gone on for so long that I did not know if my statement had even registered in his mind. One thing did register though - red flags would come up on my computerized record when I entered that emergency room. This was the same emergency room where I went when I miscarried our child.

I got out of the car, took my purse, and locked the door. I could not wait any longer, red and black spots of pain and blood loss were about to overtake my field of vision.

As I walk I remind myself why I am here.

This is myself helping him.

This is myself helping me.

I am doing this for our own good.

Sara, Chapter 02 - Clinical Philosophy

2006-09-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

Title: Clinical Philosophy
Author: arizonamyrie
Writing Stage: second draft
Category: fiction, short-story, chapter 01 (Sara)
Genre: spiritual thriller
Rating: PG
Warnings: suicide attempt
Summary: We meet Paul, the second of three main characters, at work where he recieves a necklace from a patient in a final act of kindness.

~~~~~
02.) CLINICAL PHILOSOPHY

“We need to always remember, ‘Person first, patient second…’”

Rambling voices. I hated rambling voices. How do you treat a patient first as a person when their heart had stopped and a bullet is lodged into their right temporal lobe? Do you just quietly ignore the blood spurting everywhere, soaking your prophylactic gear, your lab coat, scrubs, and everything else with blood? Do you stop what you’re doing, shake the unconscious patient’s hand and say, “I’m Doctor Millard, Ms. Jane Doe, and I’ll be the man calling your death today?”
Though many of my patients only meet me in this capacity, unfortunately today is not so. Today is a slow day here at work, and I’ve spent more time asleep on my shift than treating patients. Today, I have not seen a single trauma, as snow is beginning to fall, and the weatherman is forecasting the blizzard of the century. Sure, we’ll probably see only three inches, six if the nursing staff decides to pray; if we’re lucky we’ll see even fewer patients. No, today is not the day the woman at the conference was referring to, and the woman in front of me is certainly not the patient anyone had ever considered at that conference. I look up from the chart in my hands and find myself standing in front of a very old, blunt, sharp-witted diabetic ninety-three year old matron barking out her every demand in only the way that she can.

“Where’s my popcorn?!? I want my popcorn!!!”

The nurse standing next to her, Betty from St. Steven’s Nursing Home as her nametag reads, looks at me with a look begging me to take this woman off of her hands. I look back at the chart, looking for a title in which to address this patient; the charge nurse never entered one for this old woman, and I can only guess what to call her as I walk towards her, hoping only for the best.

“Mrs. Klein?”

“Ms. Klein, thank you very much, and where’s my popcorn?” the woman barked.
Betty gave me a sympathetic yet hopeful look as I looked back in her chart. How was I to know? The hag refused to let any of us take her history, and when Betty opened her mouth to offer it to us, the bitch spoke up first, cutting her off. They couldn’t have been referring to this woman at the conference, could they? Thankfully, we had some history, and knew enough to know that she would lie just to spite you, and that she was a diabetic who had been, up until now, in a diabetic coma.

“Ms. Klein, your nurse says your blood sugar spiked to 519, and you lost consciousness. Do you know where you are?” I continued through the basic neuro-check, to help establish how lucid she really was.

I thought back to the conference as I went through the routine examination and remembered the torture of sitting through two days of meetings concerning how to treat all patients like a person first. This phrase, “Person first, patient second,” would become a swearword, swear-phrase, in my life, the little sore that would not go away, and a plague to my health. I hated it, even if there was truth behind it. Most of my patients, those who were conscious or at least somewhat coherent when I met them, were grateful and helpful in letting me treat them, even if most did not understand that this was just my job. I tolerated most of my patients, and they gave me a reason to somewhat tolerate what I did everyday of my life. They treated me with respect, and in return, I did the same. A majority of people say that humility is the basis of humanity. I say its toleration. Either way, you need to feel it to be alive, be respected. But, what do you do when the patient won’t acknowledge you as a person?
I treated the cantankerous woman, gave the nurse the orders to admit, and silently wished luck to the personnel upstairs where she would be spending the next few days at the expense of the American people, thanks to the Medicare that had kept her alive all these years. She would spite us all and be back at the nursing home after her blood sugar had come down.

God, if you exist, I hate this job.

At first glance, you would think that I have everything. In a way, I do. Top-notch education at John Hopkins, home on the lake just north of town, offer to be on the hospital board of directors, and $175,000 a year as the head of the Emergency Department at the hospital I slave at. At first glance, it looks like I have everything, the image being on I’ve worked hard to attain; even my scrubs are designer label.

In this world, image is everything. Truth means jack squat.

“Jeez Paul! Do you think that chick has ever stepped foot into a real hospital?” I felt an elbow, Frank’s elbow, jab me in my ribcage, in the exact spot I would use a needle to puncture a person’s chest to expand a collapsed lung. Now I know how the patients felt when I did this. Of course they were usually unconscious at the time. “Look at her! She could have been on the cover of my wife’s Vogue. Look at that rack!”

“Frank, why are you ogling the presenter?”

“She’s hot!”

“Anna’s two rows ahead of us! Are you crazy?”

“Trying to get you to finally notice life here Paul. It’s called an intervention. I have Anna. What do you have?”

It is days like these that memories of last year’s medical conference flashed into my head. The topic was “Clinical Ethics in a Philosophical Environment.” On order from the head of the hospital, all department heads were required to attend a yearly medical conference against our wills. “Part of your contract,” or so we were told. Frank happened to pick this gem for us to attend together. We were to go, take notes, and when we returned, implement what we learned as new policy and protocol in our departments. After today we were to treat the patients as people first. Good luck in the ICU with Ms. Klein.

I remember looking at Frank that day, and then down at the ever graceful Anna who had no inclination as to what we were really doing up behind her. I remember closing my eyes upon seeing Anna’s unassuming happiness, and on that day, I thought of all the things that I had lost in my life. Anna symbolized all the things that I had missed in my life. There were too many holes left where my emotions had once been. I had heard people talking behind the backs of others about what would happen if that person had been hurt one more time. It was commonplace in the ER, a subject that was all too familiar to my patients. What happens to a person when they finally give up, broken into small little pieces that cannot be reassembled?

I now sit here, in the present, constantly reminded of the things I had lost since that day at the conference. I did not have much left then, and there is even less left now. I am broken. All that is left to my life is in front of me on a spare gurney in an abandoned ER room that was turned into the resident’s room three months ago, paperwork stacked up in front of me as I tried to keep up with this week’s admissions. Good thing it was a slow day. I looked out the window, hoping to day-dream and noticing that the snow had picked up as it fought to take my thoughts back away from me. Maybe the storm was worse than we all had thought. I looked at the gurney longingly; an hour ago I had been asleep on it, blissfully unaware of the world around me. There was no choice left but to continue on in my paperwork, but my mind wandered away again.

My life had become typical over the last year. I got up in the morning, showered, got dressed, and got breakfast on the way to work; Caribbean Hazelnut and an onion bagel chased before and after with a cigarette. There were days where that would be all I would eat, and the time spent eating that was the only time I spent for myself until I returned home early in the morning hours; I had long since fallen in love with the second and third shifts. Yes, to the outside observer, the image I project is one of having everything in my life, but that is far from the case. We like the image in our society, it reminds us that there is more to our lives than the truth.

In reality the truth meant nothing.

Nothing.

Reality breaks image. Reality kills ego, showing that I am left with nothing not even fear or sadness. Reality can even rid you of toleration and humanity if you allow it to, which you usually can and do easily, allowing reality to replace everything in your life with some hidden agenda.

I came here to work today, broken, and left with nothing. I have a job, saving people who appear to have nothing, yet, have more than me. I have a house that I live in, empty by the lake save for the few shreds of furniture that are left to function only for survival. And I have a car to drive back and forth between the two. Outside of that, I have nothing; I don’t even have emotions anymore.

My job, I do have that; I live in that, I survive in that. My job has me, it is my life, and without it, I would cease to exist. Image once again differs from the truth as everyone has always told me how dedicated I was as a person - to my job, my family, my education. I was dedicated, and the events surrounding Amy happened.

Amy.

Until a year, two months, and three days ago, Amy was the main part of my existence, the reason I lived each day. I no longer know why I count the days. Maybe it was because the last day she was here was the last day I felt life, my life. I would come home, and Amy would be there, sometimes with Scott, with dinner and a huge smile on her face, calling me “Daddy.” She was the gift that came into my life my second year away at college after a night of drinking and a terrible mistake with Regina. My second year of medical school, that same mistake brought along Joanna, and then three years of marriage. By the time I finished my residency, I had two daughters and a divorce. Regina left me for; I don’t even know what anymore. All I can assume is that she is happier where she is now, wherever that may be. At least I should hope so.

Raising two young girls while working an internship and starting a career is tough, and I will deliberately be the first to admit it. I am grateful to Frank and Anna, who were there as a surrogate family since we met in med school, for finding ways to smuggle them into the hospital when the babysitters would not take them. And I am ever more grateful for the nurses that worked with me while I was raising them, and took care of them during the more grueling shifts. The natural nurturing and comforting skills that these men and women possess is astounding. Just a simple smile brightens the day of the sick and the dying. A colorful band-aid given to a child from these gifted colleagues can stop almost any child from crying. So many doctors take the credit for what these nurses do, but I refuse to. Too many times my job has been saved by them. They run the show here, not us doctors, and I wish that other men and women in my profession would recognize that fact.

I am a doctor in the smallest emergency room in Chicago, the head of the department even, but I have probably already mentioned it. It seems the only thing relevant to my life these days. Like image, it is a title only, one that I have worked hard to earn, and that means something to the people around me. It even meant something to me up until about a year ago. To others, it means that I have knowledge, stature, and leadership. It means a lot to the patients, correction, the people here. They come to me for guidance, strength, hope, and to die. They come to me because the title, my title, however uncomfortable it now is, brings meaning to their lives. Yet, it took everything from me.

I go through the actions of my day to day job - taking in patients, treating them, discussing cases with my colleagues - and to me it no longer seems real. It is as if my days are dreams and my nights are reality. Who is to say that I am real? I think therefore I am? A hallucination thinks, seems real, but the only way that it is is through the definition of the word. If this is a hallucination, then nothing has jarred me from it yet, and I do not know if I want anything to do so either. The less real my life seems, the better. The less misery that I experience, the more I can pretend that my life is going well, that I have accomplished my life’s goals, and that I still have something to live for.

This is what had become of my life in the last year. I remember one of the last few good days, the one where there was still laughter in my life, Frank and Anna were still working at the hospital; Amy and Scott had long since left, leaving me alone at the house on the lake, a home once filled with harmony, laughter, and bliss. There is no laugher there anymore.
Frank came up to me in the cafeteria on a rare occasion where we both had time to get away from our departments and pretend we were back in med school together, playing pranks on the residents and attendings all over again. I thought it would be one of those meals that would remind us both of who we were, where we had come from, and where we were to go. I had noticed that Frank had seemed more distant than normal recently, and that Anna had stopped smiling. I tried to talk to them about it, but neither could focus for more than five words without eyes darting from one corner of the room to the other. There had been a recent change in administration, and the first people on the guillotine were frank and Anna, the latter only by association with her husband. Once, we were always in trouble for the tricks that we played; no it seemed it was merely from politics. I had hoped the meeting that day would be one of reminiscence.

The look on Frank’s face that day said otherwise. He walked over with a mug of coffee in his hands, having given up on normal food long ago due to the demands of his current job. He sat down, sloshing coffee on his shirtsleeve, and swore. He had changed in the few weeks after the conference. He didn’t know why, and neither did his doctor. He just changed, owed it up to old age.

“How are you Frank?”

Frank looked at me and wouldn’t talk. For the first time in our twenty plus year friendship, he refused to do so. Even at the most inappropriate times, he would be talking. That’s one of the things that bonded our friendship but that sudden inability to speak worried me. I prodded some more and finally got a response.

“If you had a chance to do this all over again, would you?”

“What do you mean Frank? You’re healthy, you have a great job, and an even better relationship with Anna.”

“Is that really the case? Would you chase the job, the money, the status and knowledge, knowing where it would lead you already at age thirty, and now in our late forties?”

I still had something left in my life that day, substance, friends, family. I didn’t respond to Frank’s question.

“Paul. Was all the effort you put in your life, put in for the success of a good job and money, was it really worth it?”

“Frank?” He was starting to scare me. I’ve seen people talk like that as I wrote out orders to the psych ward.

“If you knew that one day you’d be left with only this job, would you still have done all this?”

I looked at Frank and knew he saw the fear in my eyes. I wanted to change the topic, but knew that what he was saying was something we both needed to talk about. I knew that he was onto something, if not completely right.

“Paul, I wanted you to know before anyone else. I’m handing in my resignation in an hour. It’s not worth it anymore. I never see my wife, my family, and I spend all my time here. I’m sick of the politics, and I want out of it while I still have something left to my life.”

“Frank, you’re wife works here, you eat lunch with her every day, even me when I can join you two. You commute with her. We play tennis every Tuesday and you surprise her every Thursday.”

“Yes, but you know what I mean. It’s not the same.”

Frank, as a psychiatrist, was a wonderful doctor. He was always a reflective listener, and was able to analyze anyone. Anyone, that was, but himself, his wife, and me. When it came to the three of us though, he was still a teenage boy trying to survive the jungles of high school. He would become greedy and think only of himself. That’s what got him and his department into trouble; he had the ego of a surgeon. Poor Anna meanwhile was suffering from guilt by association, and her job was on the edge. Yes, Frank was known to be greedy and for once I wanted to be greedy too, ask him what would happen to me now that my last two connections to emotion and happiness were leaving.

I wanted to talk so badly, and he saw the shock in my face. Instead he spoke.

“Paul. Was all this really worth it? You’re at odds with the administration daily, your entire family has left, and…”

“And now the two friends in my life, my best friends, are leaving me. Thank you very much. Was it fucking worth it to see the people around me greedily taking what they wanted from me, using me, and then leaving me on the side of the road? Fuck no Frank! Where’s Anna?”

“She took the day off to start packing.”

“Packing?” I was furious.

“With all the politics, we need to get away from here. We’re moving to Aruba, Paul.”

“Aruba?!? Are you out of your mind? Do I need to send you to, I don’t know, yourself for a psychiatric consult?”

The entire cafeteria was now looking at us. There had been no hint, not even in gossip, that this was going to happen. The only hint of anything going on were the nurses whispering behind my back, “Poor Doctor Millard, what will happen to him if Frank and Anna ever left?”

“Goodbye Paul.”

He left, not even with a “Let’s keep in touch,” or a, “Come visit whenever you like.” All he did was stand up and leave, his coffee sat in front of me, steaming in its mug reflecting the last real emotion I had ever felt, the shock of that thought pulled me back to the present in my makeshift office. I hadn’t heard from Frank since, and at that point in my life already, doubted that I ever would again. I stared at the pile of paperwork under my hands sitting on the gurney in front of me; I had already signed half of it in less than an hour. I was proud and was on a roll; I could go to the roof for my reward cigarette sooner than I thought.
My life continued on. I went to work, did my job, sat alone at home at night, attempting to sleep but only trying to watch television or read a book. I never succeeded in either.

Late one night, Anna showed up on my doorstep, soaked in the rain of a rare late-November rainstorm. The ever-considerate friend that I had become, I huffed and scoffed about losing sleep, then just as she was about to turn and leave, I let her in. We started talking, and after what seemed like hours, she finally had gotten to her point.

“Paul, Frank is dead.”

I stared at her in shock. My best friend, the one who had left me greedily a year ago, the one I still hadn’t forgive, was no longer alive. “How?”

“He killed a man by accident, and out of guilt, he killed himself in jail. Hung himself in the middle of the night with the blanket he was given.”

Anna looked at me with sorrowful eyes. If I were able to feel emotion, I would have consoled her, helped her, even held her. But instead, I just stared blankly into her face.

“What happened to him Paul? Was he saying there is a god? Was he saying something more?”
My mind wanted to flip into clinical mode, to look at Anna as a patient rather than a friend, but I would not let it. Maybe I should have, it probably would have helped that night. I looked at her, and told her the only truth I really knew, “I don’t know.”

We then debated for what seemed forever about religion, with her finally ending with a chilling sentence, one that I thought was relevant to Frank only, and no one else, “Paul, if you had the chance to end everything, no strings attached, no punishment in the afterlife, would you do it?”
I missed the hints, I missed her cry. “Of course not, don’t be silly.”

“Why Paul, why? It’s not as if you have anything left to be thankful about, is there? You haven’t seen the girls since they left, let along Regina, wherever she may be now.”

“I have a job with responsibilities. People need me. That’s more than you can say.”

“But is it really worth it?”

I looked at her, still not knowing what she was saying, still wishing the clinical part of my mind was there, filling in the blanks to what she was not saying aloud, but saying only between her words. She wanted to know why, and I did not know. Looking at the time, I instead bid her goodnight, gave her a pillow and blanket (I had already given her a pair of scrubs to wear while her clothing dried), and went to bed. When I got up in the morning, I saw her lifeless body hanging from the rafters above where my favorite lamp and side table had once been. She had committed suicide that night. There was officially nothing left for me to live for.

I sat down on the couch and looked up at her body. I knew I should at least try to find a pulse, treat her, but I also knew it was useless. If I was asked again the questions she asked me that night, and had I possessed the gift of foresight, my answers would have been different, more truthful and slanted from the true depressive angle I had viewed them from. I would have joined her in an instant, hanging from that rafter by her side if not helping her along with it. Looking at her above me, I felt something. I looked down and saw a single tear staining my pajama shirt. Hope was gone; any chance at happiness was over. I would have done anything for her, and I no longer had the opportunity.

Suddenly, my pager went off, summoning back to reality to tend to the next patient on this slower than slow day. I called down to the desk, ambulance was ten minutes away. I signed the last few lines on the sheet in front of me, took my stethoscope from my lab coat, and went to find prophylactic so I could protect myself as I treated the woman in the car accident.

I walked into the trauma room just behind the stretcher and my newest patient, person, who was miraculously not only alive, but still conscious. She was another old woman, and she was in bad condition. Paramedics were filling me in on her vitals as I looked at what other info we already had been given about her. She had been in a car accident, she had no family in the area but claimed to have a grand-daughter living somewhere on the streets of Chicago. She was here looking for that girl or woman and following a lead from the overpriced private investigator she had more than likely hired. Paramedics said they thought she had a stroke moments before she crashed her car; looking at her, that would have been my first guess as well.

The nurses, resident, and I treated her. Being a slow day, she got our full slow attention. We stabilized her and examined her; aside from a few abrasions and bruises, nothing appeared to be wrong. Just to be sure, we all left to run some tests while a nurse and her paramedic stayed with her to keep her company and monitor her ever-important vitals. Even though there was a snowstorm starting, it must have been a slow day for them too.

I was back in my make-shift office signing paperwork again and waiting for the labs to come back. I had a real office but I didn’t want to go up to the administrative level to work in it. I was rarely in that room, and instead used this one for whatever pleasure I sought at the moment that I could still get away with inside these walls. My pager started beeping again - the old woman was crashing. When we all got back to her room, she had taken a turn for the worst. Internal bleeding. We assessed her, performed all the tests, and not one of us had noticed it. She looked me in the eye and said to me, “It’s okay; it’s my time to die.”

When a patient tells you that, you know there’s something seriously wrong.

We went through the normal actions all over again - checked the ABCs, vitals, everything. When I went to place the oxygen mask on her face, she clamped her hand on my wrist and said, “No. Everything happens for a reason. I should have done something good long ago. Take this,” and with her other hand she undid the clasp on the necklace around her now bloody neck, and put it in my free hand.

“We’re not allowed to accept…”

“Take it.”

The woman forced the trinket into my gloved and bloodied hand. I have had patients attempt to give me something out of thanks, but never anything as they lie on their deathbeds before me. Usually, they beg for one last moment to see their beloved, or state their last regrets. In a way, what she did by giving me that necklace was stating that she needed one last final act of kindness, goodness, the ability to defeat her last regret, however, never has a patient been able to fulfill that last regret and then…

“Doctor, she’s flat-lining!”

I looked at the monitor and saw that her heart had stopped. We tried to resuscitate her, but after a futile attempt, ended up calling time of death instead. Up until today, I would have only really thought of the extra paperwork involved. I would have regretted having to go up to my office, rummage through stacks of forms, and then regretted having to inevitably xerox those forms, as those were always the ones I was running out of. I would have regretted the extra time I would have taken and regretted the fewer number of cigarettes I would inevitably have smoked that day. This was different thought, now I only thought of that woman’s necklace.
I stood over the old woman and looked at her lifeless body. She had gone cold, she was dead. Though I had seen the sight many times before, I saw for the first time what I would be like if I was to actually go through with what I really wanted to do: I would be a corpse. As I stood there over her body, a chill ran through my spine; she died. For the first time ever as the doctor I had become, bitter and sore, a patient’s death had affected me. I was forty-eight and in my nineteenth year of practicing medicine, and until today, death had not affected me. But this one was somehow different.

She had given me her necklace.

“Dr. Millard?”

I looked up and the nurse was looking back at me gently from the doorway to the trauma room, wondering why I was still there; she had evidently pulled the short straw to prep the body for transport to the morgue downstairs. Somehow, the sound of her voice snapped me back to reality, and I made the final notations in her chart. I told the nurse that I would do the dreaded job instead this time, I did not want to leave my thoughts just yet. I knew I had other things to do: patients to see, forms to fill out, meetings to run, the list could go on forever. I had to contact the family, talk to them, tell them that this woman was now dead and reality as they knew it would change forever. Everything would change forever. Little things that were once taken for granted, small mementos, even the sound of music would remind the survivors that the woman they had relied on died alone suddenly in a foreign emergency room in a foreign city surrounded by foreign doctors and foreign nurses. She came here alone and will now leave alone a swell, shipped in a bag back to wherever her remaining family called her home. Life would change, just as mine had. Why had she given me this necklace? Why bestow upon me this final act of kindness? Did the reason my brain could not rationalize this because I still had something to live for?

The old woman’s words echoed through my nicotine-riddled brain as I began to disconnect various random tubes and wires; the drug’s numbing effects having long wince worn off hours ago. “I should have done something good long ago…” She seemed good enough to me, even better than most of the patients I treat here.

I pulled a sheet over the woman in the final act of preparation and caring and my hand hit the edge of the gurney; I felt the cool metal permeate the glove on my hand that protected me from the evils of disease. That is a joke. I’d actually welcome the change in my life, maybe then I’d be noticed. Granted, I am noticed: I heal the injured, cure the sick, give comfort to the dying. I am a doctor, and the world thanks me for it, or so the stereotype goes; the old woman even did so tonight. Truth is that I gave up on humanity long ago, when Regina left me with my two daughters, the only good thing to come from our marriage, and finally when I discovered Frank’s and Anna’s deaths.

“Doctor, the morgue techs are here for the body.”

I looked at the young nurse again, and realized that I was still covered in blood, the necklace precariously dangling out of my hand. She knew not to ask for it from me, as she witnessed the woman hand it over as one final act of humanity. I looked at the woman below me; is this what we all look like in our final hour? Vulnerable and looking for one last saving grace? At the end of the gurney stood the tech from the morgue, “I’ll take her down.” Did I really just say that? Why was I so connected to this, this body? It could not have been from a simple act of kindness, the simple act that I see everyday when a mother thanks me for suturing her son’s wound or a husband does so for telling him that his wife had just died in a car accident. No, I refused to believe that I am actually feeling.

I look up and I find myself now standing in the morgue. How did I get here so fast? Oh yeah, shock. The attendant and the tech take the gurney from me, and as I feel the metal bar being tugged away from my grip, the necklace falls from my hands.

“Dr. Millard, we’ll take it from here. I’m sure they need you back upstairs, busy night and all.”

I don’t respond to either of the men; the act of this patient dying has somehow cast a trance on me. I go to feel the necklace in my hands but realize just now that it had fallen to the floor; I it up, removing the prophylactic gloves and smock that keep our clothing free of bodily fluids and other materials that do not wash well in the process, and am greeted by the sting of the cold metal against my bare fingertips. I look closely at the intricate design on the cross charm - a small flower decorated the center, almost pink in color, and the four arms of the cross each had some symbol carved into it. I looked closer at the symbols, and recognized one as the Greek letter alpha and another as omega, the other two I did not recognize. I put it around my neck and felt the cold metal on my skin. Who was to care if it was a woman’s necklace? It was mine now.

I left her body in the care of a system I do not understand and now that I’ve received this necklace, wonder if I want to witness. I looked at my watch and noticed that it had been three hours since Ms. Klein was admitted and left my department, three hours since I had first intended on taking my break. I still had not had the cigarette I owed myself.

I made my way up the stairs to the roof, moving the door open, pushing the snow that had already fallen in its path. I have always felt solace up here alone on the roof of the hospital, and I come here often just to think or to escape the rigors of the life that I have accidentally created for myself. And of course to smoke. I came here the night I was first made department head. I came here after discovering the news about Frank and Anne the first time. I came up here after Amy left. And I stayed up here the night Anne died. What had my life truly come to, but this? I lived from moment to moment, waiting for the next time that I could come up here, to be closer to the heavens, or what society had deemed so. There were so many philosophical and psychological explanations, yet it often came down to one single truth: I really couldn’t wait any longer for my next cigarette.

I found a spot under the awning of the doorway and lit up. I felt the nicotine start to rush to my brain, reinvigorating me, rejuvenating this lifeless body. It was amazing what a simple drug could do to help you reinvent yourself, if even for a few more moments of chemical bliss. The heart beat faster, harder, adrenaline rushed through your veins, clearing the cobwebs from your all too foggy brain. I felt the nicotine rush through my, pulling me somewhat from my self-imposed abuse, but it still wasn’t enough, nothing could fix what had come of my life, including the act of pretending a cigarette was my personal redemption. I had to admit this to myself once and for all, the truth was hard, and the truth was that there was nothing was left to my life. My wife left long ago, my children left, and my best friends left. I walked to the edge, looking over. It was ten stories down, and you could barely see the ground from up there due to the storm. I pushed some snow from a couple of feet of the ledge and sat on it, looking at the snow-addled landscape far below and around. I didn’t want any of this. I stood up and gently, carefully even, put one foot, then the other on the ledge and looked at the peaceful world around me. Before I could do anything however, my pager started to beep. I slowly made my way down from the ledge; the ambulance was five minutes away.