Waving Not Drowning

Charlie always says no. Confidently but not with so much force as to raise any flags. Direct, make eye contact, no embellishing, then move on. Sometimes the interviewer will elaborate, a subtle attempt to casually redirect, asking the same question with other language to provoke a different response. Charlie's been at this for a while, she knows the drill, sees it coming miles before the neural synapses have even fired in the doctor or nurse or social worker or psychiatrist sitting in front of her. On a third attempt to question her once, the triage nurse started speaking uncomfortably loud and very slowly, as if Charlie was either deaf, mentally challenged, a foreign student or all three. Maybe it was the hapi coat and chopsticks in her crazy dreadlocked hair, who knows. Her asian phase has long passed. Regardless, the blue eyes, fierce red hair and freckles should've been a dead giveaway. The problem with a technologically advanced medical system in the largest city in the co...

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...