Good evening, everyone...
Of the various stories, tales and fables I have written about Christmas
and its meaning, the single story that people nearly always remember is
nearly a true story, for some of the protagonists in the story once lived,
and most spent time at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane. This is their
story, made fanciful...
==========================================================================
Tales From the Front, an ongoing series of stories started over a decade
ago, offers a means to explore aspects of human nature which often go
unnoticed in the rush and throng of modern society. In this, the first of
four Christmas Tales From the Front first released in 1992, we meet a
modern-day nurse who, upon losing her place in the book of life, finds
that she still has the means to discover the meaning of Christmas.
******************************************************************
TALES FROM THE FRONT
The Christmas Bear
Copyright 1992-2004 Dave Laird
1:346/11
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The wet snow fell earlier than usual that year. The number of auto wrecks
added a particularly heavy load on the hospital emergency room, so Sue was
glad when it drew close to time to go home. No more battered bodies,
children shrilly screaming in pain, no more crying out in pain. She
glanced overhead at the clock. Only fifteen more minutes to go, yet as
soon as the thought crossed her mind, she heard the ambulance radio come
to life, and in the distance she could hear the sound of a siren
beginning to wail.
Code Blue. Car accident. A child and her mother. She checked the carts in
both of the unused emergency rooms once more, finished restocking just as
the ambulance backed up to the entrance in the deep slushy snow outside.
"Ohmigod." someone cried out softly, choking, as the first of the two
stretchers were pushed into the emergency room, for on the first stretcher
the broken, shattered remains of a young woman was terribly mangled. Most
of her face was badly lacerated, and where her right breast had been was
badly dented inward, with pieces of fractured bone sticking out between
the shards of what remained of her blouse. Her eyes were closed, almost as
if to ward off the inevitable pain. Vital signs were not good, but with
luck, she would live.
The second stretcher bore a small girl, perhaps 10 or 12 years old. She
appeared conscious, but unmoving.
"Put the mother in Room 2 and the daughter in Room 5," Sue crisply said,
directing the attendants from the ambulance crew.
"I'll take the mom." Lou Ann, the other Registered Nurse in the E.R.
whispered briskly, striding off behind the first stretcher.
The procedure was deeply imbedded into her consciousness. Establish blood
pressure and respiratory rate. Check for visible trauma. Pulse checked in
thready, breathing shallow. Shock, like an unwanted visitor, lingered
close at hand. A bruise at the base of the girl's neck, extended around
the rear only to emerge on the other side. The girl continued to lay
still, a stolid look on her face, her deep brown eyes staring soundlessly
back at her.
"What's your name?" Silence.
"Do you know who I am? I'm the nurse that's going to help your mommy get
better." Stillness dripped, like an ugly viscous fluid, into seconds, then
minutes.
"Don't you want your mommy to get better?" She leaned over the stretcher,
examining more closely. Little girls on the verge of shock were never
quiet.
"If you can hear my voice, blink your eyes for me." At last, the long
lashes closed briefly over the deep dark eyes, only to reopen.
She reached over and hit the intercom button.
"Dr. Lindley, could you come in here as soon as possible? I have a little
girl who is paralyzed."
Minutes later, when the doctor arrived, he confirmed her worst fears.
Injury at the base of the head, possibly nerve damage. Loss of all
psychomotor activity, hence the silent, forbearing look on her face.
Otherwise she would have, in typical little girl fashion, been screaming
her lungs out.
Before the ward nurse came to take the little girl away for X- rays, Sue
held up a button-nosed teddy bear where the little girl could see it. The
teddy bears, donated by the Hospital Auxiliary for such occasions, seemed
to soothe little boys and girls who were frequently terrorized by the
unknown.
The eyes blinked once more at her, until as the stretcher was moved down
the hall, the twin swinging doors closed, as the little face swathed in
white sheets with a teddy bear sitting up next to her on the stretcher,
disappeared from view.
She checked in on the little girl about a half hour later, after once more
cleaning and sterilizing the emergency room. She kept her voice even,
happy, not daring to tell the girl that she no longer had a mother. Under
the watchful gaze of the pair of sombre eyes on the stretcher, the best
that she could do for the littlest patient and her newfound friend, the
bear, was to hold her lifeless hand, and before she left, tuck the teddy
bear in beside her on the stretcher.
It was six in the morning on Christmas Eve, and as she left the hospital
nearly an hour late, it was beginning to snow once more.
She had done much of her Christmas shopping during the flurry of sales
just after Thanksgiving, yet she still needed to buy something undefined
and special for her dad, not to mention buy groceries for the big feast
that was slated to take place at her house on Christmas Day. Her folks
would be there, along with her daughter, Melanie, and Larry.
Her heart warmed at the thought of Larry, her good-looking, boyfriend, for
since he had entered her life nearly six months ago, he had increasingly
become the center of her life. At first, it had been tranquil dinners up
at the ski lodge. Then there were passionate weekends spent up at a
friend's lake cabin. Their relationship had continued to spiral inward
until they were seeing each other exclusively, nearly every night of the
week. She had already begun to admit to herself that even after her
bitter divorce two years ago, she was falling in love, and this time it
felt different. Trust in men was beginning to return to her life.
On an impulse, instead of driving down the hill toward home, and some
sleep, she turned instead toward Larry's apartment.
Opening the door with the key he had given her, she had an indefinate
notion of perhaps fixing his breakfast while he slept in. She tiptoed into
his bedroom, trying not to squeak the door. Yet, when the door squeaked
loudly, a figure moved in the gray half-light that lay on the bed.
"Who's there?"
Instead of Larry's deep bass voice, a woman's voice all full of sleep and
slurry with unanticipated awakenings, floated across the room.
Indignation, betrayal, pain. Somewhere inside her, a voice started crying
out. Only after several seconds did she realize that she was screaming, at
the woman, at Larry. She started crying, and turned to leave.
Larry grabbed at her shoulder, missed. She slapped his face hard once,
twice, then with the anguish of the scorned, tried to scratch his face.
Although off-balance from the slaps to his face, he struck back, his
marine training finally discovering a macabre fulfillment. A savate kick
to the midsection. Sue stooped over, the breath already leaving her
midsection. He snapped his arm over his head in the classic karate chop,
and dropped her neatly unconscious to the carpet with a blow to the back
of her neck.
Today, nearly two years later, Sue remembers that morning, seldom dotes
upon it, but never mentions it to anyone, save trusted, few friends.
Although she can talk, she no longer works as an R.N. at the hospital
where she was treated, for she, like the little girl who was her last
patient, is now a quadraplegic. She spends her days, frantically
attempting to continue living life independently, save for the bevy of
nurses, nurses aides and home care professionals who sustain her new life.
Larry has already completed his jail term, and is once more a free man,
once more the predatory animal he was when she first met him. He has a new
apartment, a new job, a new girlfriend to whom he is engaged to be
married. He filed bankruptcy. He is a new man.
Her hands, her legs, are lifeless and limp. Yet, sitting upright in her
bed, she can gaze out her front window, where it is beginning to snow once
more, and as the twilight fades into evening, here and there, across the
city, she can see the Christmas lights coming on. Carolers from the church
up the street come by, stand beneath the street light and sing a few
desultory carols before wandering off in the snow.
She is nearly asleep. The sound of her bedroom door opening gently rouses
her.
"Huh? Who is it?" she asked, thinking it probably was the nurse's aide.
A faded old elf of man, all dressed up in a filthy dirty red and white
suit limps in the door, dragging some sort of a bag over his shoulder.
"Okay, who's idea of a joke is this?"
"It's no joke, Sue. Come with me."
"What? You know I'm paralyzed, for Christ's sake. I can't move, can't feel
anything from the neck down. Besides, I don't even know who you are."
"Yes, you know who I am. Reach out and take my hand."
She did, and somehow was not surprised that she could move her legs once
more, stand up and walk with the old man toward her bedroom door. There,
standing just outside the open door, was the little girl she had treated
in the emergency room nearly two years before. Just before they crossed
the threshold, he handed her a button-nosed, teddy bear, and together, the
three of them walked forth into the sunlight and the haze outside.
Sue and Rebecca, once mutually associated with a house of pain on a hill
in Spokane, Washington, now have gone onto a better place with an old man
dressed up in a red suit. He came bearing gifts for each of them, special
Christmas bears which were made especially for this occasion.
The Talemaster turns yet another page, and speaks once more.
"Turn the page, child. I'll tell you another tale when you are ready...."
* Origin: The Phoenix BBS *-Clayton, WA. USA-* (509)276-7103 (1:346/11)
(The original Fidonet site of The Phoenix BBS)
Dave
--
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot
Web Page: http://www.kharma.net updated 11/24/2004
Usenet news server : news://news.kharma.net
Fortune Random Thought For the Minute
I'll burn my books.
-- Christopher Marlowe
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