ADSactly Fiction: One Night In Emergency
One Night In Emergency
Hospital corridors are so long. They are so cold, with strange sounds and silences. The corridors are dark mouths where the fear of a thousand years is engendered, thought the nurse as she watched the number of people glued to the wall, whose faces were facing the floor, hiding perhaps a thousand sadnesses. There is no room to hide or hide from the grief that falls like rain, the woman pondered as she walked down the cold corridor. She thought of her 20 years of service and the envelope that contained her resignation.
People stood on the walls, leaning on them as their only salvation. There were no seats for those who waited in the emergency room, so that they had no expectation, nor expected any miracle; so that they would lose hope and leave. Those who were there had been left with their faces bent down, with their gaze on the floor, as if life was worthless. They were already mourning their loved ones, even though they had not yet died.
Suddenly, from one of the doors at the end of the corridor, some people in White coats came in and out; they went in and out with bloody hands. Some people who were in the emergency corridor ran and cried, every second was worth a lot at that moment and the corridors, before death, become longer. From the group of doctors on duty and auxiliaries came one who approached and asked in a whisper: You are the Brown family, I am sorry. There were not enough shoulders for so much suffering, nor hugs to alleviate so much grief; the relatives hugged each other in dismay, and the others who watched, full of bad omens, hoped not to be the next in the endless waiting.
The nurse in green uniform continued to walk upright, neat, slowly down the narrow corridors of the hospital. She was taking blood pressure, checking medications, taking notes. It was normal for her the scene of crying, the blood of one of the detached extremities or a perforated organ, the mother with the dying child in her arms, the woman kneeling before a deaf or very busy God. She was serious, immutable, as if her heart was empty or she came from a very remote time, as if no one had ever been able to draw a tear from her. The woman went in silence because she knew that any greeting, any word at that moment would be inopportune, hollow, inhuman. And is that she knew that people at that time require deeds, not words.
All night and all dawning the corridors of the hospital became a river of people and blood. An opening and closing of doors from which came many despair. The acute weeping or stay of people in the environment, was accompanied by the smell of acid, coffee, urine, food and blood. When the clock struck 7 o'clock in the morning, the nurse took her briefcase in silence and went out into the street, feeling a too bright and yellow sun; an air that seemed unreal to her.
When the nurse in the uniform arrived at the house, she slowly closed the door and slid down one of the walls until she sat on the floor. There, with her hands on her face, she became a great sob and felt like a child again. Her chest looked like a sea with many waves and she felt the familiar pain that burned her insides. Her lips shivered, her limp body shook all over. With trembling hands, the woman in uniform opened the briefcase and saw the envelope with the renunciation still inside. I must resign," thought the woman. For a moment she raised her head and looked out of the window: the sun had appeared inside the clouds and illuminated the city with a warm light. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath:
_ If I could... how good it would be
The woman made a gesture to get up, for an instant she made the effort, but did not succeed. There, lying on the floor, she felt that she was losing all strength and her heart was beating full of fear and expectation.
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Written by: @nancybriti
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Great story. Very descriptive. You did a great job depicting the chaos and the emotional upheaval.
I recently the ER with my daughter and what we witnessed made us feel that we'd rather be dead than piled in that hall suffocating under the stench of despair and oblivion.
It is a dantesque spectacle and as I saw the faces of the young men and women who play doctors I wondered how hard it must be for them to wake up every day with renewed spirits to go to work in hell
That's right, @hlezama. Going to a hospital in Venezuela requires will and strength. It is regrettable that the hospital in Cumaná, which a few years ago was an example within the hospitals in Venezuela, is turned into chaos, into a garbage dump. Health professionals who really have a vocation must feel that working is a penalty, a punishment, a tragedy. Greetings and thank you for your comment.
waoo I love your narration, made me imagine every moment, sometimes I think that those who work in an emergency room have lost sensitivity, there are so many things they see and live there, the crying of people and death is part of the day, it should not be easy. However, some months ago I saw in an interview a nurse from a hospital here in Venezuela, although the woman began with great mettle her complaint about the lack of medicines in the medical center, ended the interview with tears in her eyes, literally collapsed and let see their feelings and helplessness for not being able to help patients, that really made me cry too, because I realized that definitely those who are there as doctors, nurses, among others, are worthy of admiration.
That's right, friend! Although we are professionals and try to stay calm, there is a moment when reality makes us collapse. For example, you and I are teachers and at some point, seeing our students trying to get ahead, despite the adversities, makes us feel a mixture of pride and also sadness because we know that this reality is hard and difficult. It is a hard time for those who have the soul of a hero, says history. Thank you for commenting, @luces.
Very good story, @nancybriti. Besides presenting us with realism the painful situation of our hospitals in Venezuela (although it could happen in another country as well), you manage in the character of the nurse, anonymous protagonist of that generally unrecognized work of salvation, to describe the psychological drama that can be confronted between reality, hopelessness and reanimation.
Thank you for your good post.
Yes, just as every night in the cities is the same, I imagine that all the emergencies in many hospitals around the world look like hell. In the case of Venezuelan hospitals, hell is literal, it does not accept metaphors or similes. Thank you for commenting, @josemalavem
@nancybriti, At Hospital 🏥 we see most painful and worried faces and this is one place where no one wants to visit ever.
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According to you! No one wants to go to a hospital as a patient, let alone if the place is in deplorable condition. Greetings
Got your point and it's true.
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I often think about how difficult a job this would be. The woman gets up every morning with the determination to make HER life better by leaving her job of tending to the most needy of people. But their needs are too great, her determination erodes, and she goes home night after night without handing in the letter. Each morning begins anew, letter in the briefcase and hope that she will have the strength to deliver it, but she never does. A living nightmare. Terrible. A metaphor for any day of any life lived under duress without hope of escape. Excellent story.