TLS case

« Laddie! A moment please,” Whispered the wizened man, clad in death. He lay, prostrated on a gurney, in the corner of the emergency boxes’ hall. I reluctantly answered his beckoning and began walking towards him. A miasmic fetor bellowed in his vicinity. He was left unattended in the corner beside the urology box. The beige fissured wall he propped against looked in just as bad a way, its stuff: Moist, and its paint: Loose. “I beg of you, I’m nearing my end, allow me the sight of my lo-” he gasped for air, his eyelids pulled to their utmost. “I need to see my family, please take me to them,” He urged in half-spoken words.

 He was a sight most sorry: His mouth shifted from ajar to agape as he struggled for air whenever he dared a word, his pale skin was parched and all-showing, slowly being engulfed by large patches of escaped blood, visibly pronouncing the weary pulse of his ghastly vasculature, and the very white of bone. His carotids fluttered and danced; his heart was at its wit’s end. He was all sinew, down to the last of his flesh. He reached out his lithe hand to mine, and dropped a weight of familiar texture on my lax fingers. “I can’t take that, sir.” I swiftly rummaged through his hospital drapes and hid his offering inside.

 “I’m but a student. I’m not authorized to move you anywhere. Forgive me,” I tacitly stated. With time, I learned to evade the patients’ personal requests. For one who dwells in this place, knee jerk reactions such as this one are essential. But that was quite the bundle, wouldn’t you say?

 As I was about to veer away from him, a man in black scrubs stood by the patient. He hunched over so as to get a good look at his face, rested his hand on his abdomen and began percussing on it. Having little to do on a surgical rotation nightshift, I thought I’d enquire on the case. “How are we, sir? Feeling better?” he blatantly asked. The patient stabbed his eyes into his, for lack of ability to say: “What the fuck do you think?”. I won’t discuss the logic behind that question, as there probably is none. It’s simply one of the many unseemly habits of the Kallis medical community.

The resident took notice of me and my inquisitive intentions. He managed something of a smile through his salt and pepper stubble. He lifted the drape off, revealing an inflated, grape-like abdomen, a flick away from popping. Veins branched out like tree roots across its surface.

“This here, in case you’ve never seen one, is an ascite. Here, put your hand on thie right flank,” He suddenly ordered, I complied. He then pressed one hand on the patient’s mid-abdomen and began tapping with his fingers on the other flank. I felt a wave-like impulse on my palm. “Feel that? That’s the ascitic produce reverberating within the peritoneum. Congratulations, you can now physically assess an ascite,” He proudly or satirically announced, then turned to the patient. “Thank you, sir, for your cooperation,” He finished, then pulled us away from his earshot.

“He’s a goner, the poor soul,” He abruptly declared. “He was to be operated today, for a vesical tumor resection. Unfortunately, his chemotherapy had taken quite the toll and now he’s dealing with both advanced tumor lysis syndrome and sepsis due to chemotherapy-induced aplasia. Shame.” He explained. “I know this can be tough for you buds, but there’s no developing a fortitude for these things other than to face them,” He asserted, then ebbed away into the surgical ward. He’s already dead, then?

I looked back at the patient. You wouldn’t! You couldn’t! Surely not you!

I reluctantly walked towards him. But that was quite the bundle, wasn’t it?

“Sir! Sir! Feeling better?” I imitated the resident. He nodded.

I rummaged through his things and found his phone; I browsed his contacts and called his wife.

“Hello?” Cried a shattered voice.

“Madam, your husband wants to see you. Meet us next to the personnel door,” I ordered, in something of a sinister voice.

“Why? What happened?” She shudderingly asked.

“Just meet us there.” I hung up.

I salvaged the sum from the inside of drapes, hurriedly put it in my pocket and unlocked the brakes on the patient’s gurney. I scanned the area for any suspicious eyes. The path was free. “Hang in there, sir, you’ll see your loved ones yet,” I whispered to the hapless man.

I rode the gurney through the aisle opposite to the surgery ward. I could feel eyes on me, suspecting my activity for a moment, then dismissing it on account of my scrubs, probably.

Nearing the personnel exit, a woman in beige stopped us on our trail. “Where are you taking this patient? What service are you from? I haven’t seen you around, are you a medical student?” She attacked with a blitzkrieg of questions; it seems she was a stretcher-bearer.

“I’m on my urology rotation, the resident told me to take the patient to the service,” I replied.

“Which resident?” She asked, wary of any stuttering or hesitation in my response.

I bugged. A myriad of first names escaped the tip of my tongue. I could see in her skeptic mug the expression of one who gets off to enacting justice: Smug and sneering. I pulled half of the “corrupt” cash and offered it in exchange for her silence.

“What’s this?” She asked, in a tone of hateful confusion.

“This man is dying. He’s drawing the remainder of his life as we speak. Behind that door is his last reunion with his loved ones. I’m well aware of the callous, coarse stones this place has made our hearts, but please, do brook him a quarter and spare him the sight of you being his last,” I prayed, somewhat ostensibly, while feeling a surge of bolstering righteousness.

She glared at me for a good minute, knowing my career was in her hands. She looked down at the pitiful man and her expression went from flexed and firm to the lax, soft visage of a mother tending to her sickly child. “Go on, then,” She whispered, refusing my trade as she set herself aside from the door.

“Thank you.”

I opened the gate; a cacophony of rain drops ambushed my ears. Four silhouettes rushed towards us with their umbrellas aloft. They wept and cried, cast soliloquies and spoke well and ill of god’s name. They grabbed me and begged me to do something as their beloved kin was seeing himself out of this fever dream, we call life.

Amidst their cries, I jerked the gurney away from their sorrow-weakened arms and rushed back to the corner, out of fear for my own life, yet to be lived. The weight of the bribe lay uncomfortably in my pocket. I put it back and ebbed away. What good is money for a dead man?