chapter 2
fiction
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
ing red metal Sears Roebuck tool chest, is also in the way,
its open drawers a menace to knees and elbows. There are
wires draped from the crash cart and tubing everywhere.
At the center of all this lies the patient, the only one in
the room who isn’t shouting. The patient doesn’t move
at all. This time it is an elderly woman, frail to the point
of wasting; her ribs arch above her hollow belly. Her
eyes are half open, her jaw is slack, pink tongue protruding slightly. Her gown and
the bedding are tangled in a
mass at the foot of the bed;
AT THE CENTER
at a glance you take in the old
mastectomy scar, the scaphOF ALL THIS LIES
oid abdomen, the grey tuft
THE PATIENT, THE
between her legs. At the head
ONLY ONE IN THE
of the bed, a nurse is pressing
ROOM WHO ISN’T
a mask over the patient’s face,
SHOUTING. THE
squeezing oxygen through a
PATIENT DOESN’T
large bag; the woman’s cheeks
MOVE AT ALL.
puff out with each squeeze,
which isn’t right. Another
nurse is compressing the
chest, not hard enough. You
shoulder her aside and press two fingers under the angle
of the jaw. Nothing. A quick listen at her chest: only the
hubbub in the room, dulled by silent flesh. Pile the heels
of both hands over her breastbone and start to push: the
bed rolls away. Falling half onto ѡ