The song settles into her old push-button phone, sounds through her cheap, bad-sounding headphones, echoes in her head as she hums it to herself as she rubs through a mountain of instruments.
In a life filled with loneliness and a couple or three casual acquaintances, such a bright, ice-cold Clark has taken a pedestal of honor and now looks on from there, sometimes raising an eyebrow. What are you, Johnson, a complete idiot?
Emily smiles at her thoughts, silently doing her chores.
I should take Clark out for ice cream, she thinks. Chocolate and mint or coffee, and have cinnamon straws sticking out of the vase; except what kind of ice cream – it's about to get sub-zero outside, and the damn rain just stopped its week-long assault on the city yesterday.
I wonder which one Clark likes…?
No one even speaks to her properly; each time Emily comes to the room, takes readings, gives evening shots, takes her to procedures, until one night her fragile internal system fails.
The day before her exam and certification, Emily prepares the blind girl for discharge – tomorrow she is to be taken to an assisted living center where she can get temporary housing and the skills she needs for society; so Emily, with notes turning over in her head, doesn't even think that anything bad could happen.
But it does happen.
When the monitors explode with squeaks and the thud of a body hitting the floor from behind, Emily is already out of the room, so she has less than a second to react and support a falling patient, and no miracle happens, of course – no miracles happen in medicine, you should have remembered by now. Her head bangs against the foot of the bed, there's a pathetic, barely audible cry, and something bangs loudly against the tile, drowning out the screeching monitor.
Emily elbows the staff call button, laying the convulsing girl back down. It's another lesson learned, experience-enforced sequence of lowering the headboard, shoving off the bedside table, throwing off the blanket and pillow, and pressing her shoulders against the cool sheets.
Instead of the nurse on duty, Clark flies into the room – and her appearance here is even more unexpected than if an angel had flown in through the window.
– She's up, she's down, she's having a seizure! – Emily yells out, afraid that one more violent spasm and she just can't hold it.
– On the side of her," immediately commands the neurosurgeon, switching places with the nurse. – Ten cc's of Pherocipam! Why did you even let her get up?
– They're prepping her for discharge. – Emily breaks off the ampoule and fills the syringe. – Where is everybody?
– I have no idea… Oh, shit!
The drug is administered immediately, without failing, only instead of strengthening the process of inhibition in the central nervous system, it works exactly the opposite. There is a crunch, the patient bends her whole body – and falls down, falling over. Emily sees blood trickling from her mouth, and another trickle of blood trickling from under the bandages on her head that hadn't been completely removed.
Clark palms the call buttons at the head of the neighboring beds, and they go off instantly, filling the room with a bright red glow; somewhere in the back of Emily's mind, she flashes the thought that it never happened the first time – the button must not have worked – but it slips away too quickly.
Emily sees everything that happens from the outside – here comes the resuscitation team rushing in, here is Clark, shouting, pushing the gurney with everyone else, and here is herself – white as a sheet, with only one thought – what if she did something wrong…?
– There could be anything. – They rush into the elevator. – Let's get her to the O.R. We'll take it from there. Johnson, you're dismissed.
Emily can only stand and watch as the heavy elevator doors slowly close, cutting off her face Clark, on which – Emily would have sworn – written in panic.
In her gut, she knows something has gone wrong.
Instead of the nurse on duty, Clark flies into the room – and her appearance here is even more unexpected than if an angel had flown in through the window.
– She's up, she's down, she's having a seizure! – Emily yells out, afraid that one more violent spasm and she just can't hold it.
– On the side of her," immediately commands the neurosurgeon, switching places with the nurse. – Ten cc's of Pherocipam! Why did you even let her get up?
– They're prepping her for discharge. – Emily breaks off the ampoule and fills the syringe. – Where is everybody?
– I have no idea… Oh, shit!
The drug is administered immediately, without failing, only instead of strengthening the process of inhibition in the central nervous system, it works exactly the opposite. There is a crunch, the patient bends her whole body – and falls down, falling over. Emily sees a thin stream of blood pouring from her mouth; another trickle trickles from under the bandages not completely removed from her head.
Clark palms the call buttons at the head of the neighboring beds, and they go off instantly, filling the room with a bright red glow; somewhere in the back of Emily's mind, she flashes the thought that it never happened the first time – the button must not have worked – but it slips away too quickly.
Emily sees everything that happens from the outside – here comes the resuscitation team rushing in, here is Clark, shouting, pushing the gurney with everyone else, and here is herself – white as a sheet, with only one thought – what if she did something wrong…?
– There could be anything. – They rush into the elevator. – Let's get her to the O.R. We'll take it from there. Johnson, you're dismissed.
Emily can only stand and watch as the heavy elevator doors slowly close, cutting off her face Clark, on which – Emily would have sworn – written in panic.
In her gut, she knows something has gone wrong.
* * *
The sleepless night before the exam, the chronic lack of sleep and malnutrition of recent days, the inhuman regime brings dizziness, weakness and nausea into Emily's life; she gets carsick on the bus so bad that she has to get off two stops early and walk, wading through the crowds of people rushing to the subway.
Emily tries to count the number of cups of coffee she's had in the last two days, and she loses it at ten. Her stomach rumbles pitifully: she doesn't have time to cook, and she can't eat enough sandwiches from small shops.
And Emily doesn't have much money, but she'll get a big raise if she passes her exams.
If only she could survive the day, the nurse thought, and her fingers touched the wooden cross on her breast.
