The End of the Week

Thursday night. Best night of the week. This week anyway. Last week it was Monday. Two weeks prior, it was Sunday.

Marise ran tugged at the hair tie, loosening her tangled knots from the tight bun. Ugh. Her hair was still damp from this morning. Twelve on, twelve off, four on, three off, five on, four off.

Whoever said nurses spent too much time eating bon bons at the nurse’s station, waiting for a patient to need them was utterly deranged. When she’d graduated from nursing school three years ago, she’d sworn to never “do it this way when the auditors come by, but we don’t have enough time for that, so here’s how you cut corners.” To this day, she hadn’t cut a damn corner. And her patients were safe, unharmed, and she always took the extra minute to sit on the edge of the bed and share a joke. And her jokes were terrible. Yet she always garnered a laugh.

And whoever had dubbed Chicago the windy city wasn’t kidding around. The chill breeze about knocked her on her butt. Her paper-thin scrubs moved great when she needed to sprint down the hall when the sound of broken glass alarmed, letting her know her patient was at risk of falling. But not so great in the wind. Wasn’t it supposed to be summer? Where was the heat wave they’d predicted.

She tightened her denim jacket, wishing she’d thought to bring a sweater. The breeze ruffled her damp hair, the tangled mass blowing right into her mouth. Sputtering out the hairy mouthful, she blinked away the momentary vision loss. Maybe this weekend she’d just chop it all off; a spunky pixie cut would be a nice change of pace anyway.

Gusting from ahead, from the side, the wind blew at the cuff of her pants. And wool socks would have been a good idea, apparently.

Stronger, fiercer, howling like the hounds of hell, the wind knocked her backwards.

Landing with an aching thud, her butt hit the concrete. Maybe she should eat more than protein bars and take a full lunch break, but there was so rarely time. But at least then she’d have enough cushion.

Pushing up to her feet, she leaned forwards and gripped her jacket tighter. Kiss my bruised butt, wind. One more block to go. Frozen pizza, here I come. Hot and fresh and gooey cheesy goodness.

Spinning, a cyclone whipping through her, the wind pulled her from the ground. Flashing across the sky, a bolt of lightning raised her higher. The snarky part of her brain wanted to rage at the inaccurate weather report. The rest of her brain searched, fought, struggling to find a way back to the ground.

Static filled the air, the wind spinning her above the highest roofs.

Another flash, and another. Lightning crashed in every direction, ringing deafening thunder.

Panic flushed through her veins like an IV push delivered too quickly. Closing her eyes, she resisted. Focus on what you know. Her fingers and toes were throbbing with the onset of numbness; the chilblains would be obvious by morning. Pulse pounding in her chest, her heart beat erratically; it’s just a few SVTs, she told herself. Bear down, Valsalva that back to normal.

Sirens blazed in the background. Slamming her eyes open, blinking away the frigid raindrops from her eyelashes, she watched as the ambulance was blown off course.

Leaning, she willed her body back to the ground, but it was no use. The wind was too strong, the lightning unrelenting.

Stretching her limbs, she reached into the air, releasing herself to the storm.

Static sparked over her skin, her pulse raced faster, her mind flashed image after image of her past. Clenching, tightening, each nerve ending in her body connected at once, each brainwave firing, each muscle tensing. An awareness alighting in each cell.

From each fingertip, electricity connected to the storm. Gathering the force of it, she raised her hands and blasted the force into the sky.

Blasting back to the ground, she released moments before she landed, a gust jetting from her heels as she slowed her landing.

Taking off towards the ambulance, she reached the inverted back doors in seconds. The force of the spin had rendered the locks unbreakable. Gripping the handles, she jerked the doors open.

Wow, what the hell was that? Grinning at the sensations pumping through her, Marise nearly laughed at the bizarre power.

As the doors flew off the rig, she found her patient. Lying face down on the ceiling – now the floor – of the ambulance, he moaned and held his chest. The paramedic lie next to him, a gash over his head. Coming around at the sound of the doors flying off, he jerked up and started searching for supplies.

Stepping into the crushed-tin-can of a rig, she reached the patient. Holding her hand over his chest, she felt the ventricular tachycardia threatening to induce cardiac arrest. Sending volts through her hands, she triggered the nodes that misfired.

His body jerked under her hand. His rate slowed, his rhythm steady. Breathing in and out, steady, guarded, her patient lived.

“I’m a nurse,” she informed the paramedic. “He’ll be okay. Can you call in another ambulance to take him to the hospital?”

Nodding as he held his head, his brow scrunched low in confusion, the paramedic reached for the radio.

As he spoke, Marise fumbled through the drawers until she found a bandage. “May I?” she asked.

He nodded again.

She cracked open the vial of sterile saline, cleaning the wound. Taking her time, knowing the rush was over, she taped gauze over his wound.

His voice full of gravel, of confident uncertainty, he called in another ambulance.

Marise crawled out of the wreckage and made her way to the driver’s door. The woman was still buckled, strapped to the ceiling. Her pulse had stopped. Her brainwaves ceased. Having worked in her field long enough, Marise knew when even the best care was not enough. It never became easier.

Rounding one last time on her patients, she said goodnight.

Shoving her hands in her pockets, she continued down the sidewalk. Her stomach rumbled, wishing she’d had more than that protein bar for lunch. The wind brushed through her hair, drying the damp locks that had been pinned up all day.

As she reached her apartment building, she punched in the code and pulled open the ancient wooden door, smiling to herself as the weight of it was insignificant tonight. She dashed up the three flights of stairs, her mind easing as she saw her door. Sliding her key into the lock, she let herself in.

Home. Well past ten at night, but it was okay, she had tomorrow off.

Pulling the pizza from her freezer, she set it on the counter and moved to start the oven. Looking around, feeling silly even though she knew no one could see, she raised her hand over the frozen hunk of crust and cheese. Hovering her fingers an inch above, she let the heat run through her veins, the electricity fire through her nerves.

Inhaling as steam rose from the counter, she laughed out loud. Sliding the piping hot pie onto the cutting board, she ran the roller across it, creating eight equal slices.

Picking up a slice, she blew gently over the triangle, then sunk her teeth into the gooey bite.