By Arno Bohlmeijer

In May, I failed exams and never stopped to think, why for God’s sake, while the others were having parties in their gardens.

         No time to regain my feet: a summer job was coming up.

         In June I turned eighteen and picked tomatoes after cycling miles to vast glasshouses at 4:00 a.m. Despite the struggles, I wouldn’t stop to think, just urged myself to secure a place in the world or make a start.

         At work, girls would gaze at my muscles. “Perfect body,” I heard the low voices, but my mind was blurred by the moist glasshouse heat. Without heeding, I pulled cobwebs along, and the green of the plants glued to my skin. The job required some deftness. I kept moving smoothly even when the basket was full, not mingling with the others during breaks, drinking pints of water.

         Riding home in the soothing air, I leaned on the handlebars.

         My mom went on about catching my death, but I moved on. I read and dreamed about the French Alps. The money made with the strength of my body, was spent on a hiking trip there, with nights in a tent and a hut.

It’s early July. I seem to be calm and cool, but this track across the glaciers needs good weather, and who can guarantee that?

         The fields and snow have caught the first glimpse of day. Although the sun must be on its way, this can’t be called daylight yet, reaching right above Switzerland, to show Mont Blanc’s top floating in a soft pink, lonely, holding up its proud façade.

         I’ve paused without taking my rucksack off. The need for rest is gone, my legs are longing for the motion again, the focus and the rhythm. Sometimes I’d like to go faster, but I want to enjoy the deep and steady bending of my knees.

         Alongside the trail, the slope of ice is creviced. Soon the snow plains will be a world of their own, where twenty-four hours don’t count. The gentians won’t be there for a lifetime.

         The sun is climbing with me.

         After parking my rucksack in the hut, I explore a rocky stretch as a last rehearsal for tomorrow. On a flat and secluded boulder, I take my clothes off and lie down. My naked body is x-rayed by the tight-blue sky, and when the wind drops, the air is knife-sharp.

         Voices travel far here. A row of people have reached the glacier trail, that now crosses, then dodges the crevasses. Those who left at 3:00 a.m. are returning from Mount Chardonnet. They appear as a string of dots and come closer until they’re taking their crampons off in silent fulfillment.

         Later and later all sounds are fading. Some light remains on the ice nearby, but white giants further away are oblivious of me. In spite of myself I’m staying till the sun is away, to sense this desolation or consolation to the utmost. Then I leap down from one rock to the other without checking if they’re safe.

         By the path below, a man is asleep, curled up against his rucksack: a fellow human being, out of time like me.

         For me.

         I’d love to lie down and put my arms around him, to share the warmth and relief, to make up for… 

Don’t really know. 

Don’t want to feel.

         No, I won’t go closer and find out more, nor wait and see when he wakes and finds me. He’s on his side, the hands under his head. Babies and grown-ups can be similar when the mind is at rest.

         This moment should be preserved and carried along intact, but I wouldn’t know how. I’ll give him a careful wide berth.

Outside the large hut, climbers are preparing for tomorrow, still sweating from today. A quiet bond has grown among those watching the purple sky turning into lilac. They whisper and lean on the balustrade in bliss. The last thin light makes me feel happy just being with them, if an outsider.

         When the dorms are opened, we’re told that forty ‘bunks’ per room must be shared by sixty people; booking mistakes. Like one big bed, there are rows of narrow mattresses. Keen to be first on the scene, I take one by the door, with a pillow.

         Selfish! I know! True sportsmen just fold a bag or jacket under their heads.

         At this height, the night gets cold. Fully clothed, we all squeeze together.

         One person goes for some air by the window. Another wants it closed. Each time it’s being opened and shut, I try to turn over and be comfy, but there’s no room, so I’ll stay on my back, pretending to relax.

At 3:45 a surge of action wakes me up. After crazy cramps in my left leg, I’m one of the last ones to get a bowl of hot chocolate. As if my stomach would take much more anyway.

         Outside, several people are finding their ways with torches, and I can follow the dancing of little lights. The moon won’t show the rocks or clefts. On the edge of the glacier, we all put our crampons on in silence.

         On a single track, the line of humans is thinning more and more. When to say that somebody is ‘left behind’?

         Patches of snow are as hard as the ice beside it. While the slopes grow larger and rise more sharply, steps in the trail get smaller. It’s the Chardonnet peak that shows the first sunlight. It will descend and reach me.

         For the time being, the Col du Tour is an icy wave forever on the brink of breaking. Behind it, both the wind and sun are waiting patiently. This west side of the crest never gets the sun’s warmth, and its steepness can’t hold much snow. The first climbers are halfway up, hardly visible now. The path is lead around clefts up to eight feet wide. They’ve warned me in vain: don’t go on your own, without a rope. If you slip, there will be nothing to grab; one of the gaps would swallow you in a fraction of time unnoticed.

         I keep trying to press my crampons into the ice, but it’s rock-hard. There are no footsteps for me to follow. During the day, the surface will melt a little and become even more treacherous. Better keep ahead of the sun. When a weak spot has melted, even stones will be helpless.

         The rise is close to its climax. Wondering madly if I can still go back, I concentrate on my feet with the pressure on my knees increasing. Don’t rush from restless fear! Trust your legs! Don’t bend and lean on your hands.

         It hurts to see everyone linked by safety ropes. Where’s the other man who was alone too?

         Suddenly the wind comes lashing around the Col, nearly pushing me back. The wind I can cope with, though, it means that I’m getting there.

         Face to face, the sun is now a straight and blinding line. All sense of standing, all contact with the earth is gone, until the feeling in my legs returns – as if I’ve been far away. I pull and tie my hood firmly and defy the wind-gust, that brings tears to my eyes.

         On the other side of this Trient ridge, a lee could be the herald of heat. The contrast is extreme. The whiteness of the plain is dazzling. The snow is loose here, and it covers the clefts with a layer that should be safe. There’s a spooky sensation each time a leg sinks deep in it.

         Behind the drifts are weird gaps, covered by a bridge of snow. . Having climbed that, I find a shielded spot, to study my hike map and watch the Plain with Matterhorn in the distance: a knifepoint against the light. My left knee can feel twinges that don’t seem relevant yet.

         When there’s a cry not far below, I know I’ll be involved., The bridge of snow has collapsed, probably tackled by the sun. A group of people are at the top of what used to be ‘stairsteps’, formed by their feet on the way up.

         Ropes are checked and connected again. The first man puts his heels into the snow and jumps. He lands awkwardly, tumbling down the slope amidst cheers and applause, but the snow is soft and breaks his fall. . I am getting ready. The push-off spot has crumbled, so the gap is even wider: with each jump, larger chunks are breaking off.

         By the time it’s my turn, the waiting has numbed me. Why am I last but one? I can’t see the bottom of the chasm, but its ice walls are shining like mother-of-pearl. Before I know it, I’ve jumped;even before they can throw me a rope. Thankfully, strong pair of arms pull me to a safer place.

         Without looking around much, I continue and walk in a daze, ignoring the pain and fatigue. Can I be proud of what I accomplished or have I pushed it too far this time?

         Don’t take a breather, keep up the pace! If you stop to think, who knows what you’ll find.

         Can clips of life be skipped?

         Maybe, but one day will call you to a halt.

He’s part of the salty surf, spurting water into circles and sparkles. His muscles are smooth, especially his legs, performing swift and vigorous leaps. These limbs are so nimble… the veins are lines of lasting strength.

He’s even more intense than the motion of the waves, more naked, his pace has a beautiful poise, a sense of cradling.

After the anaesthetic, a body of flesh and blood has been struggling for consciousness. The beach images are zooming out into an image of thehospital room.

         I do remember flashes, growing into fragments – from elsewhere to here and now.

         The pictures of motion on the ceiling have faded.

         Walls become solid again, if dizzy.

         I can’t tell this headache from nausea, can’t keep my eyes open.

         When they tell me that something is over, sickness is mixed with a start of relief.

         But something else is worse. I’ve lost touch with…. what?

It’s the visuals of those legs that linger, long and limber, glowing in the blue summer mood, blending strength and tenderness.

         One of my legs has been cut off, high up the thigh. 

Yes, alright, I’m trying to open my eyes and see real life, normal functions instead of memories resembling stupid, loony, funny fantasies, while nothing has to do with anything anymore! Don’t they understand?

         They tell me it can feel a bit unreal after surgery. And sure, I am calming down. As if there’s a choice. Not helped by a madness or clarity; is all this caused in the Alps or by a damn cancer? Is a rot stopped for good by the amputation? 

Which cause would be easier, or the least nasty bad dream?

         While reality remains volatile, I wonder; the leg must have been disposed of. It would not be left lying in sight by accident, would it? On the table there, I’d swear… For me to cast a very last look…

It’s no longer mine.

         Say goodbye to it.

         Yes, I’m trying alright!

         But for years it will be rambling on my mind and nerves and senses, as genuine as the mountain cliffs. And where have those gone? How could they leave me behind?

Never mind. I’ll find a way back someday, in time and place, when the curled-up man there will wake up and say gratefully, “You’ve waited for me.”

Arno Bohlmeijer is a humble recipient of a PEN America Grant 2021, novelist and poet, writing in English and Dutch, published in six countries and in Universal Oneness: An Anthology of Magnum Opus Poems from around the World, 2019.

By Stephen Baily

In Granford, if you need a doctor, don’t bother consulting the yellow pages. 

—No? Why’s that?

No private practitioner in Granford will take you without a referral.

—Unless my logic is defective, that would appear to make it impossible for anyone requiring medical advice to obtain it in Granford.

Which is why the Qwiki Mart on Gamma Street—sensing a niche to be filled—opened a clinic at the rear of its premises. Look for it at the end of the beer-and-wine aisle, behind the potato-chip display. You don’t have to call for an appointment either. The Qwiki Mini-Clinic welcomes walk-ins.

—I take it from this preamble you had occasion to avail yourself of its services?

Soon after I found my wife—newly fired from her job—sprawled on the floor in our bedroom with a big gash on her forehead. I doubted the gash needed stitches, but I pretended to think it did, so she’d agree to go to the clinic first thing in the morning.

—Why would you want her to go there if the cut didn’t need stitches?

Because I was worried about her health. I’d been worried about it for months.

—Since you had to trick her into seeing a doctor, I take it she didn’t share your concern?

She was in denial to the point where she’d storm out of the room if I so much as looked askance at the trembling of her hands. Or else she’d turn the tables on me and insist there wasn’t a thing the matter with her—that I was the one with the problem.

“I didn’t have a gut as big as yours when I was nine months pregnant. Not to mention I can’t remember the last time you went anywhere sober!”

Which was by and large true, but didn’t alter the fact she hadn’t had to hoist me up off the floor with a bloody forehead.

Unfortunately, the doctor who saw us at the clinic wasn’t the type to invite confidences. Not only did he come across as detached, he was also Asian and short—anything but a winning combination in Meredith’s eyes.

—She was a bigot?

I wouldn’t go that far. She didn’t care who moved in next door. Let’s just say she could never shake off certain negative attitudes she’d acquired during her childhood. 

—What about her? What was her background?

Strange to say, she didn’t know. Her family had been in the country so long they’d forgotten where they’d originated. Not that that made any difference to her. She had no curiosity about her forebears and claimed to be indebted to them only for her height, from which she relished looking down on the doctor at the clinic.

—How did she account to him for the gash on her forehead?

She didn’t have to. He didn’t ask. He just assured her, after examining the wound, it’d heal without stitches. She’d have been gone the next minute if I hadn’t interfered.

“As long as we’re here, doctor, would you mind having a look at my wife’s arms?”

Before she could protest, I snatched back one of her sleeves. The skin under it was covered with purple splotches from the elbow to the wrist.

“It’s the same with her other arm. These things keep appearing out of nowhere.”

“Is that all?”

“She hardly eats and, when she does, as often as not she throws up.”

“It’s nothing!” she objected. “Nerves.”

He took a moment to review the medical history she’d been asked to fill out on our arrival behind the potato-chip display.

“I notice, under drinking habits, you’ve checked the box marked moderate. What’s your idea of moderate?”

“Two glasses of wine a night,” she said promptly. “I’ve been trying to cut down to one, but I’m always so keyed up at the end of the day.”

I wasn’t about to let this bunk pass unchallenged.

“Tell him what size the glasses are.”

She suddenly had trouble meeting his gaze. Like a cornered animal’s, her eyes darted around the stark white walls of the examining room while I answered the question for her.

“Her favorite cup holds a liter, and she fills it to the brim at least twice a night.” 

“Well,” the doctor said finally, “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do. We’re here to deal with minor emergencies, not patients requiring more complicated care, so I’m going to have to refer you to an internist. I can tell you right now, though, you’ll be wasting his time and your own unless you enroll in a substance-abuse program.”

That was too much for Meredith, who drew herself up to her full height.

“I’m not sitting around trading sob stories with a bunch of born-agains. I’m an atheist!”

To this outburst, he responded by taking a brochure from a drawer.

“This particular program is under the auspices of Grenadine County. It’s entirely secular. No religion is involved. They also offer one-on-one counseling, if you’re not comfortable in a group setting.”

That cut the ground out from under her, and I was for heading straight from the clinic to the offices of AlcoHalt, as it was called, only she balked.

“I don’t need any social workers holding my hand. I can stop by myself.”

I’d have been more inclined to believe her if I hadn’t heard this boast before, but she insisted nothing could be simpler, now that she’d been liberated from the stresses of her job.

—You’re saying she didn’t take the doctor’s advice and sign up with that program?

She didn’t make an appointment with the internist he referred her to either. 

—I hesitate to ask what happened next.

She was as good as her word.

—She stopped drinking?

That same night, she switched from wine to dope.

Stephen Baily is the author of three novels, including Markus Klyner, M.D., FBI (Fellow Traveler Press; available also as a Kindle e-book). His short fiction has appeared in Atticus Review, The Offing, Lunch Ticket, Subtle Fiction, and some fifty other journals, and he’s also the author of five published and eight unpublished plays. He lives in France.

By Brian Yeary

The kitchen table was cold to the touch as the old man wiped crumbs that had fallen from his rye toast onto the tile floor below where the old dog waited patiently to gobble them up, just as she had done every day for the last fourteen years. After breakfast the two sat by the fire, warming themselves by the sounds of the crackling wood that sent the occasional spark dancing into the flue. The house was quiet otherwise, save for the low hum of the clothes dryer in the basement turning over wool socks and flannel blankets in preparation for the onset of winter. Though she had been a dog for all seasons, in recent years her distaste for the cold had become more and more apparent, as she often dug herself a tunnel under the covers attempting to fasten herself along the length of the old man’s form, becoming a part of him as he slumbered in the night. 

The drive was pleasant enough. A mile or so more of tidy urban street was all that lay between them and their fate. The old man said nothing as he clenched the wheel. The old dog thought ahead, imaging what it might look like to chase a blue-winged dragonfly in a blizzard. As the thought ran its course in her mind, the Plymouth turned into the parking lot on squeaky breaks and well-worn rubber.  

The old man ran his aging fingers through the gray whiskers of the old dog seated next to him in the front seat of the sedan. The parking lot of the veterinary office was nearly empty. He had asked for the earliest possible appointment, feeling the need to be over and done with it. The new autumn sun made him squint as he looked down into her eyes as she had eased herself down in the bench seat next to him resting a salt-n-pepper muzzle atop crossed paw. 

“These slacks are stained, coffee maybe. What do you think, girl?” The old man licked his fingers and rubbed the brown spot on the leg of his trouser. The sun eased in on the old dog through the window of the sedan, accentuating each line in her jowl, drawing attention to the tired red whispers of age in her eyes. She looked up at him as if to ask a question, then it didn’t seem quite so important anymore.

They could see the figure of a familiar man in the doorway. The old dog knew this place well. She didn’t look forward to visiting even on the best of days, but today she seemed a bit more ill at ease than usual. The old man coaxed her out of the car with a favorite treat and some soft persuasion. 

“Come on now, Sunshine, you can do it. Only a few steps up that hill and we’ll be inside. They’re waiting on us up there, Ol’ Doc Perkins and Ms. June. Let’s go and say good morning to them, what do you say?”  He held out a shaky hand and slipped a beefy morsel into the mouth of the old dog. She smacked her lips around the taste of it before swallowing it whole and then limped her way from the car to the long sidewalk that led to the clear glass entryway where the figure in the door wedged himself, watching them. 

“You’re doing just fine, Sunshine, just fine. You’re a good girl. Damn, but you’ve been good.” He encouraged her as they reached the halfway point. He tried to slip another treat under her tongue, but she was not having it. Her legs were beginning to tire, and her eyelids were hanging like heavy curtains. 

“You remember the first visit we made up to the hospital? It seems like only yesterday. I can’t believe we spent nearly twelve years going up there together, seeing those folks, all those sick and hurt folks. You sure made a lot of people smile.” He stopped for a moment to let the old dog catch her breath. She seized the opportunity to take a rest on her haunches, letting out a grunt and a sigh as she did so. The man in the doorway stood at the ready, patiently waiting on his work to arrive. A small foreign car wheeled into the lot and parked beside the old man’s Plymouth. Sunshine lowered her full weight across her master’s feet, restricting him from going any further without forcibly removing her from his presence. He bent over now and scratched her on the top of the head, causing an eyebrow to raise and a whine to slip from her downturned lips. The old man just stood there, unsure of how to proceed. 

“Well, this isn’t getting us anywhere, is it?” he asked. The old dog refused to answer or give credence to the question by looking in his direction. Ol’ Doc Perkins was no longer in the doorway. The young man who had emerged from the foreign car walked casually toward the sidewalk with something just shy of a limp causing him to favor his right leg. The old dog watched him now, trying to distract herself. The old man watched too, until he decided they had rested long enough.

“Okay girl, we better get along now.” His voice began to quiver as he spoke. The old dog refused to budge. She lay herself stubbornly across the old man’s loafers and let out another tired sigh.   

“Look at you,” he scolded her with the voice of compassion. “Look at me,” he continued. “We’re out to pasture, don’t you know? We’ve passed our prime, all used up and spent like old money.” He pretended to be angered by her bullish behavior, but soon felt a sweeping pang of guilt. Gathering the guts from some place where the strength of young men resides, he leaned over and grabbed the old dog by the scruff of the neck. She yelped, not out of pain, but rather out of surprise. He had never been unkind to her, all these years. She came to attention and steadied herself with the pride and grace of a companion’s companion. She had lived to serve and wasn’t about to stop now. The old man stuck out his chin, squared his shoulders and began to lead his friend once more up the path to the front door. After only three steps, the old dog’s knees buckled and she crumbled on the sidewalk, nearly collapsing across the old man’s shoes once more. He bent down over her and rubbed her shoulders as he had done from time to time after the two had spent a long day at the hospital making the rounds.

A voice called out from behind them: “Sunshine?” The man from the foreign car moved in close to get a better look. He carried a small gray cat in a pet cage under one arm. He bent down on one good leg and one not so good, positioning himself close to the old dog and the old man. 

“Sunshine, is that you girl?” He smiled at the old dog who turned her head slowly in his direction when he spoke, exposing the twisting silver whiskers on her chin, and the drooping jaw that hung in slack as she still panted from the exhaustion of the short walk from the car. 

“It is you!” he exclaimed. “I knew it, I’d recognize you anywhere! Good morning, Sunshine!” Now he patted her on the head and rubbed a quick hand across her back as the gray house cat meowed for attention from the cage nearby. The man leaned over and hugged the old dog around the neck, causing her to grunt ever so softly. She acknowledged a remembrance and licked his bearded cheek with a long, dry tongue. Ol’ Doc Peterson stood in the doorway and asked if everything were alright. The man from the foreign car waved a friendly wave and assured him all was well. The old man looked down at the old dog and the gray house cat and the man from the foreign car. He scratched his chin and asked, “Do I know you?” 

The house cat stuck its pink nose up close to the tiny bars that were holding it hostage and tried to get a closer look at what all the hubbub was. The old dog had raised herself up from the sidewalk and now positioned herself to appreciate the warm massage the man was applying to her aching back. “Oh yes,” he spoke to the old man. “You know me, at least you should. You brought Sunshine to visit me three-and-a-half years ago in the hospital, after the crash.” 

The old man did not remember, after all there had been hundreds of visits, maybe thousands? 

“Makes no difference if you do. I remember her, and that’s all that matters. Is she sick, hurt?” The man from the foreign car began to closely inspect the old dog, one shank-hair at a time. She seemed to be all in one piece. He continued to assess while the old man spoke. “No, she’s not sick, and she’s not hurt. She’s just old, we’re both just old.” 

Ol’ Doc Perkins had made his way to where the group gathered under the shade of a bent Oak, shielding themselves from the uniquely warm fall morning. 

One of his assistants followed him. “Here, I can take her,” Ms. June said with a kind, outstretched hand. 

The old dog seemed to straighten her tired back and broaden her achy shoulders, as if in defiance of the suggestion. An understanding was finally beginning to take shape in the mind of the man from the foreign car. He stood between the old dog and the vet, the vet’s young assistant, and the old man. He seemed to be manufacturing a thought he could not assemble fast enough. He spoke in a spitfire jumble of words. “Oh no, really, Sunshine?” he protested. “Look at her, you can’t, no…” He wrestled with a thought before gathering his courage and delivering a proclamation. “I’ll take her home with me…with us.” He remembered the gray house cat in the carrier looking on from behind the tiny bars. “We’ve got a nice yard, a fence, a tree where all kinds of squirrels run and play, she’ll love it there! She can come home with us…I’ll take good care of her.” He tried to convince them with a final plea. “Please, let me take her home.”

***

The squirrels in the sycamore pestered the old dog nonstop for the rest of the year. Winter was mild, spring sprang as a fresh bud from a long stem, and then summer corrupted them like so many unwanted lovers, steamy and unavoidable. The gray house cat never cared for the intrusion but the two managed to remain civil most of the time. The next winter, the man with the foreign car made a call to the old man with the Plymouth. He explained to him what had happened the night before. The old dog began to whimper, pleading to be let outside. The old dog and the gray house cat wandered off together collecting snowflakes on their backs before the dark of night shrouded them from sight. The house cat returned alone. The walk around the yard in search of the old dog proved to be short, cold, and sorrowful. She had hidden herself under a thicket near the corner of the fence and had laid right down there and died. The old man listened from the other end without even breathing. After a long stretch of lonesome silence, he exhaled and said, “Thank you,” then hung up the phone. 

As he carefully shuffled off to bed that night, the old man stopped in the hallway to straighten some photos hanging there, photos of the old dog when she was not so old, when the two of them were not so old. Wounded and broken people were there too, framed in wood and golden trimmed frames. Some of the images were dusty and some were faded; memories of so much good work the two had accomplished together, good memories, memories that would never age. He slid underneath the covers and thought about the old dog until he had to cry. He knew she would join him later in the anxieties of his restless mind, running and jumping and barking and chasing and playing in his dreams as she had done so often in these last days, chasing dragonflies in the summer sun and snowflakes in the winter shadows of his unconsciousness. He waited on her now with the covers up and around his old chin; he waited on her to arrive like the great breaking of dawn when the sun would scare away the last bit of darkness and she would run barking across the meadows, running and running, and when she would arrive, he would say to her, “Good morning, Sunshine.” 

Brian Yeary is a chaplain resident at UAMS.

By Dr. Robert Balentine, Jr.

Content warning: TW // Suicide

This story contains discussion of a highly sensitive nature relating to suicide that may be triggering for some individuals. If you or someone you know is thinking of suicide please make sure that you intervene and give them the emergency telephone number for suicide prevention (988). 

—————-

‘North, East, South, West! The ER Handles Trauma Best!’ read the laminated sign on the sliding glass door leading into the doctor’s dictation room. Inside at a desk, sat a young, fair headed doctor in scrubs, head in hands, staring down at flecks of blood marring the emerald palette of his pants. Hanging from his lapel, a freshly minted badge declared, ‘Dr. Alstrom, EM Resident’ in block black script next to a picture of its smiling owner. 

“I don’t think I can do this,” Alstrom said, the words directed at his own lap.

A white-haired man in a thigh-length white coat stretched his legs from the chair he sat in to another one serving as a makeshift ottoman. He flicked at a bruised spot on the apple he was slicing up, campfire style, with the blade of an ornate folding penknife. The words ‘Dr. Ignatius, EM Attending’ were barely visible on his badge beside his time-bleached portrait. He cocked his head, studying the fledgling resident physician with a curious, owl-like expression. 

“Nah, you’ll be fine, kid,” Dr. Ignatius said, his permanent smirk doubling with seemingly authentic amusement. “Pretty soon it’ll all be water under a bridge. Water off a duck’s back…something aqueous, at any rate.” 

“But that was a five-month-old,” Alstrom said, words still aimed floor-ward. “A five-month-old,” he reiterated, dotting each word with an emphatic linguistic brushstroke.

“Yes,” Dr. Ignatius said, making a sudden upright change in his posture that sent the ottoman skittering away to bump into the beige-paneled cubicle walls. “Dad probably got mad and shook him. Happens.” 

“Will the kid make it?” 

Dr. Ignatius lifted one corner of his mouth dubiously. “It’ll be a vegetable even if it does. Might be kinder if it doesn’t.”

“And that…that doesn’t bother you?” Alstrom asked, lifting his head to look over one shoulder at his implacable attending physician.

Dr. Ignatius exhaled cheap coffee-scented resignation. “No,” he replied. “And I’m not even bothered by the fact that it doesn’t bother me, truth be told.” He allowed his eyes to focus on a far shore somewhere beyond the white, sterile hospital walls before shrugging in something between apology and apathy. 

A cartoonish Wilhelm scream broke the silence. The doctors’ eyes met and both faces contorted in an effort to conceal their mirth. When the second, identical scream sounded a moment later, both lost their composure and fell into full, body-shaking laughter. 

Dr. Ignatius picked up the radio and pushed the button to talk, stifling chuckles. “What is that atrocious screaming?” 

Another pitch-perfect Wilhelm responded and the two doctors chuckled again. Then another with still no answer over the radio. By the fifth scream, the humor of the situation had dried to a tumbleweed husk and rolled away across the planes of their respective expressions. 

Dr. Ignatius sighed, rose from his chair, and motioned for Alstrom to follow.

Once they neared the room, Ignatius waved aside a sea of nurses in baby blue scrubs theatrically, Charlton Heston’s Moses minus the burled oak staff. At the center of the parted swell lay a pale man Alstrom estimated to be in his early seventies, his thin, gray hair matted to his forehead with perspiration. His pained expression pulled his eyelids down wearily. When he blinked, a single tear rolled down one cheek. A sudden, invisible jolt caused him to stiffen and he let out another scream, muted in comparison, as if he was a tea kettle losing steam. 

“His defibrillator keeps shocking him,” an older nurse attaching leads to the man’s chest informed them. “He was here last month. Has a bad heart and he’s been talking to hospice, but hasn’t joined up with them yet.” 

“Amiodarone drip,” Ignatius said, the command almost subconscious.

“Already one going,” the nurse replied. “It isn’t doing anything.” 

“Lidocaine.”

“Just hung that, too.”

“Let’s get a meperidine PCA run–” He stopped short as the nurse pointed to the already running PCA at bedside. His face remained neutral, but the air in the room changed. 

“Mr….Larry Bellamy,” Dr. Ignatius said, reading the name from the man’s hospital wristband. “I’m Dr. Ignatius and this is my resident, Dr. Alstrom. What seems to be the problem?” 

Bellamy grimaced. Alstrom glanced up at the EKG tracing, which showed a flurry of rapid oscillations, a single, vertical slash, then a return to the textbook normal EKG. The patient whimpered a moment before he was able to speak. “I…I can’t keep doing this. This thing has been shocking me nonstop for the last six hours. I…I just can’t.” 

Dr. Ignatius pointed at the IV bag hanging from the pole at bedside. “That right there is going to stop all those nasty arrhythmias that are making it go off. Few minutes more is all it will ta–”

Bellamy screamed again. Above his head, squiggles preceded slash, then normal green lines in telegraphed synchronicity. Dr. Ignatius seemed momentarily perplexed, but a half-second later his expression was a practiced smirk, eyes shining with grandfatherly affectation.

“Angie,” Dr. Ignatius said, addressing the nurse, “have we contacted the electrophysiologist?”

“Dr. Woodford told me that…” Angie paused to read from a blue post-it note stuck against the IV machine. “If I do any more ablations on that man, I’ll have fried every circuit in his cardiac pathways.” 

“That is…unfortunate,” Dr. Ignatius responded. “And what about–”

“Cardiology and the CT surgeon both hung up on me after they heard Mr. Bellamy’s name.” 

“Well, I guess we could sedate and intubate him so he won’t have to feel the shocks until we can figure something out,” Dr. Ignatius said. “Maybe Procainamide and Sotalol?”

“I’m not going on a machine,” Bellamy said, plainly. “Doc, tell me…what will….what will happen if you just turn this thing off?” He tapped a raised area of skin on his left upper chest with two fingers. 

“Well…the next time you go into that rhythm, it would continue and eventually convert into something fatal and you’d–”

“Would it hurt?”

Dr. Ignatius froze, mouth open mid-sentence.

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Alstrom said, hoping he wasn’t lying. “At least, it wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as the shocks you’ve been getting. Isn’t that correct, Dr. Ignatius?”

The attending grasped the lapels of his coat and straightened, as if approaching a lectern to give a speech. “The young doctor is correct yes, it–”

Bellamy screamed, drawing his legs up to his chest, as if trying to form a singularity in the center of the bed into which he could disappear.

“That should be preventing those shocks,” Dr. Ignatius muttered. 

Alstrom wondered privately if the attending physician was trying to convince the patient or himself. 

“Listen, doc. I don’t want to die. I really don’t, but I can’t take anymore of this,” Bellamy said, choking back tears. “Can you stop this thing?” 

Dr. Ignatius stared, silent.  

“We can put a magnet on the defibrillator,” Alstrom replied, when it became clear no one else would answer. “It would keep it from shocking you again.” 

Bellamy nodded and pressed his lips into a thin line. “Let’s…let’s do that, then.” 

Dr. Ignatius seemed to deflate inside his coat. “You understand this would be fatal?”

The patient nodded again. 

“If that’s what you want, of course. That’s your decision to make. Is there anyone you’d like us to call?” 

Bellamy shook his head. “I haven’t talked to my boys for years. They would think I was just trying to get attention and my ex-wife…well…” 

“Sorry,” he said, locking eyes with the elder physician. 

Dr. Ignatius gave the man the same owl-like look he’d given Alstrom earlier. “Whatever for?” 

Bellamy shrugged. “It just seemed like something I should apologize for.” 

Dr. Ignatius stepped forward and took the man’s right hand in his own. “Sir, you have nothing to apologize for. Never again.” 

Bellamy nodded. “Sor–” He shook Dr. Ignatius’ hand, then released it. 

Removing the magnet from the side of the EKG machine, the attending physician held it above the man’s chest. 

“You’re sure?” 

Bellamy nodded for the last time. Dr. Ignatius placed the magnet upon the mound of skin overlying the defibrillator. After a few seconds, the EKG tracing changed to the rapid oscillations once more and this time did not stop. Bellamy’s breathing became more labored and he searched around the room as if looking for someone he’d lost. 

“Larry,” Dr. Ignatius said. “It’s okay, Larry.” He stepped forward and took the man’s hand again. “I won’t leave you. It’s okay.” 

Larry relaxed his shoulders and maintained eye contact with the doctor. After a few more minutes, the EKG changed to a disorganized series of squiggles. The patient stiffened, lifting his arms to the sky. Dr. Ignatius laid his free hand on the man’s scalp and began stroking it, soothingly. 

“It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay.”

The squiggles became less pronounced, then settled into a flat line.

“He’s gone,” Alstrom said, voice like lead. He sniffed and rubbed the corner of an eye with the back of his hand. 

“Yes,” Dr. Ignatius agreed. He stared down at the patient’s serene expression, as if trying to memorize it. After a moment he rolled his shoulders back, let go of the patient’s hand, and grasped his lapels again.

“Are you okay, Dr. Ignatius?” 

Dr. Ignatius plastered a smile across his face. “Never better. Water off a duck’s back.” 

“It’s just, you called him ‘Dad’ there.”

“Did I? Slip of the tongue I guess.” He swept out of the room with oversized strides and Alstrom padded along in his wake. 

The air in the dictation room hung still and solemn. Dr. Ignatius turned his penknife over and over in his hands, then held it up and ran his fingers along the side of the blade. 

“This was a gift from my father.” 

Alstrom spun in his chair to face him, leaving Mr. Bellamy’s note unfinished.

“My father died like that,” Dr. Ignatius said, folding the knife and pressing it between his palms as he raised them into something akin to a prayer, pressing them to his lips. “His name was Lawrence, though everyone called him Dr. Larry at work.”

“Heart problems?” 

“Liver failure,” Dr. Ignatius replied. “He was a surgeon and fond of the drink after, and sometimes during, work. What I meant was that he died alone.”

“Well, Mr. Bellamy had us there, at least.” 

“Yes, but it’s not the same.” Dr. Ignatius stood and looked out the observation window at the constant scurry of nurses, techs, and sanitation workers. “We got the call to his death bed, but me and my brothers thought that he was getting what he deserved for all those drunken beatings he gave us as children. My uncle claimed the body.” He opened his hands to look at the knife again. “This is the only thing I have left to remember him by.”

He handed the knife to Alstrom, who unfolded the blade to read the inscription. It read, ‘May your wit always stay as sharp as this blade – Love, Dad’. 

Alstrom pushed the release on the handle, closed the knife and handed it back to Dr. Ignatius. 

“I should have gone to see him,” Dr. Ignatius said, stuffing the knife into the pocket of his white coat. “No one should die alone.” After a moment he added, “Not even him.”

Dr. Ignatius glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, it’s about time for me to head out. Dr. Conner should be coming on shortly.”

“Dr. Ignatius…” Alstrom said, worried at the persistent glisten in the older man’s eyes. 

“Not to worry, my boy,” Dr. Ignatius said, placing a hand on Alstrom’s shoulder as he passed on his way to the door. “Just a momentary lapse of sentimentality. Won’t happen again. Not good for staff morale.” He patted his ample belly with both hands and plastered a smile across his face that did not reach his eyes. “See? No chinks in the armor.”

He turned and paused at the door as if he was going to say something, but gave a small shake of his head as if thinking better of it.  

A tech, attempting to enter the nurse’s station while holding a large stack of boxes, wobbled under the load and Dr. Ignatius dashed forward to grab one as it tumbled from her arms.

“Easy,” Ignatius said, continuing his unnerving smile. “What do I have here, Penelope?” 

“Just a box of oxygen tubing,” Penelope replied, cheeks flushed with either embarrassment or effort. “I was taking it to the supply closet.” 

“Well, that’s on the way out to the doctor’s lot. Why don’t I take those for you?” 

“No, sir, I can’t let you do that!”

“Nonsense. Doctors don’t forget how to behave like normal humans when they tack those letters after our name. You’re needed here. I’m on my way home.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Absolutely.” 

Dr. Ignatius looked closely at the box of tubing, eyes unfocusing as if he was considering its contents, before shoving it beneath one arm and walking down the hall, his usual waltz step more of a funeral march.

Alstrom returned to his computer, centering his efforts on documentation as a distraction until he was interrupted by a breathless Dr. Conner bursting into the dictation room, strands of brown hair swinging free from her ponytail holder. 

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” she said. “Wreck on the interstate. Is Dr. Ignatius in the bathroom or something? He didn’t answer my texts.” 

Alstrom raised an eyebrow. “He left about a half hour ago.”

“But his car is still in the lot.” 

They walked to the monitor bank and found the camera that oversaw the doctor’s parking. Dr. Ignatius’ white Mercedes sat unattended, still tucked neatly into his designated spot. 

“That’s weir–”

A woman’s scream and the crash of something heavy echoed through the corridor, causing the nurses to scurry into the hall. Dr. Conner and Alstrom followed them to find a group of people staring through the open door of the supply closet, hands over their mouths, as if holding in some yet unspoken emotion. 

Alstrom pushed past them into the room to find a shadow rocking gently beneath the fluorescent light, a kicked-aside chair beside a pool of coiled oxygen tubing tumbling waterfall-like from ceiling rafter to floor. Alstrom took ginger steps to where Ignatius’ hospital badge lay, discarded, beside his open penknife. Carved into the badge’s faded surface was a single word: ‘SORRY.’ 

As Dr. Alstrom rose, his shoulder, the same one Ignatius had laid a hand on earlier, bumped the dangling feet of his attending, causing them to spin in a clockwise circle. 

North. East. South. West.

Dr. Robert Balentine, Jr., is a Hospitalist and Emergency Medicine Physician and a graduate of the UAMS Medical School Class of 2005. His previous works have been featured most recently in The Colored Lens, Daily Science Fiction, and Fabula Argentea. Links to other published pieces can be found online at robbalentine.com.