Waving Not Drowning

She hits the down button. Two hospital admin types, young women in almost stylish outfits, the ones afforded on entry level salaries, wait on a car going up. The elevator arrives, doors open, she steps on then realizes she's going up. Force of habit, she says aloud to no one in particular, pavlovian response. The two women sort of smile as they study the floor, suddenly intensely awkward and private. She gets louder as she backs out of the car. Doors close and she hovers her finger over the already illuminated down button. Right, just did that. It's quiet here, far from the madding crowd. Emerg was busy, mainly the geriatric crew. A few indigent and drunk and disorderlies draped over chairs, hanging out of gurneys, buried under sheets and gowns, moaning, rambling incoherently. It's the large-and-in-charge paramedic night: 4 teams of doughy young men stand sentinel with their wards, buried in paperwork, bored with the hurry and up wait logjam of daily deliveries. ...

The doctor apologizes for the delay. It's only ten minutes but in this place, ten minutes is ten minutes too long. She's sitting 8 floors above people dying. Dead people, all around her. People in agony, writhing, screaming, moaning, drugged up beyond belief and still in unbelievable pain. Suffering. Uggggggh. Anabelle can't stop fixating on being trapped in a building filled with sick people. Sure, some people are fine, perfectly healthy; they're the ones dealing with the sickies every day. It's their jobs. Wandering the maze of corridors and elevator banks downstairs Anabelle is overwhelmed by the amount of hospital gowns and lab coats and wheelchairs and walkers and oxygen tanks surrounding her. It's like a convention for the walking or rolling wounded. Obviously she's missed the cafeteria and food court section. There has to be some part of this massive infrastructure where the happy, healthy, living people full of recovery are at. Suddenly the PA system...

From the end of the subway line she takes the bus 23 stops. The transit app tells her so. Figuring in traffic and time of day she should arrive at the hospital no later than 9 pm which may infringe upon visiting hours however Lori Ann hopes that they'll make an exception seeing as she's not visiting, technically. It's recon, undercover stealth research. She has her notebook, digital voice recorder and built in camera on her phone. The trick will be to fly under the radar and be as inconspicuous as possible, hence the sneakers and baseball cap. Just another random kid kicking around the emergency room waiting for triage or maybe on a friend or family member. Judging from the map she studied online she should be able to shuffle from one area to another rather innocuously in case security or an orderly starts getting too nosy.When Lori Ann takes on a project she goes all Hardy Boys-Nancy Drew on it. Too many latchkey kid afternoons in elementary school, hours poring over detec...