Issue 7 – Non-Fiction

“Help! Help! Help!” The repeated cries carried down the hospital corridor as I quickened my pace. 

I turned a corner and the yelling stopped. There was my mother lying in a bed, flanked by two nurses failing in their effort to remove her IV line.

Her voice was loud and insistent: “Michael, get up! GET UP! Open your eyes and GET UP! GET UP NOW, Michael. I COMMAND YOU, in the name of God, GET UP!”

I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I don’t have any answers. That’s not what this is going to be, although I wish it was.

It’s easy to forget what those first months were like. I drove to work on the Southeast Expressway; a highway once clogged with rush hour traffic was near empty. COVID followed everyone everywhere – TV, radio, print media, the Internet, signs on doors to any stores still open.