Boulder Community ER
I’m sitting in the nurse’s chair and I’m close enough to the bed to lean my elbow on it. Crooking up arm back up, I’m in the perfect position to rest my cheek in my hand. Except I’m thinking: humerus, radius, ulna, phalanges, zygomatic. Anatomy seems more relevant here in the hospital.
On the bed, M is sleeping. I’d be tired, too, if I’d just had that much demarol and morphine pushed into my arm. So he’s sleeping, and I’m trying to sleep, but damn if the ER isn’t the worst place on Earth to nap. Out in the hallway metal cabinets slam shut; soft-soled shoes squeak against linoleum; somewhere close by the linoleum is being vacuumed. Loudly.
Every once in a while, a machine in the hall starts beeping. It’s more than a simple beep- it actually has two tones: Bee-BEEP, Bee-BEEP. It occurs to me that the machine is beeping in Iambic. The beeping goes on for feet and feet, meter after meter. I try to count the beeps, and then the silent time between stanzas. Twelve sets, then 45 seconds of quiet. I need to concentrate to hear over all the other ambient noise. Sometimes, during the quiet, I’m listening so hard that I hear phantom beeps. I redouble my concentration. Thirty seven sets, and over a minute of quiet. Then another twelve, followed quickly by 7 more. I don’t know what it means, and I feel myself growing frustrated by the randomness. If I can’t sleep, I at least want to know the pattern, but it looks like I’m not getting either wish. I give up counting and start narrating. The beeps fade behind me and things can start making sense again.
