grayce

I haven't really nested yet even though I'm in my new place.. its remained sort of in a flux.

Shortly though, as I have a week off next week to contemplate all that needs to be done....

Whered that doctor go? he mumbled. Amidst an otherwise dead silence, his voice rang loud in the stone hall at the brighter end of the cafeteria hall, far off from the people whod already secured their meals and who were sitting down at the tables in small groups of two or three apiece, without any words being exchanged between soft, silent bites of sandwiches or lifeless sips from soup spoons.

Everyone in the dining hall looked blank and lifeless, unable to find their focus. Hospitals are cold places.

In this silence the mans voice bounced off undecorated white-painted stone walls, making perspiring soda machines hum louder to catch up to the useless calamity that interrupted everything that wasnt happening. He looked over toward a woman small hobbling with great effort across the sparkling white floor to a salad bar close to the registers and he called to her.

Is the doctor dead?

But the woman didnt answer him. She didnt even seem to hear, though a few of the people from the dining hall looked up from their cold soup bowls and gave him the once over before lifting spoons up to their lips again. Fluorescent lights over the table were so bright he could see glares fragmenting off spoon handles.

He couldnt move his arms.

Or what passed for arms, after surgery.

Just then, a nurse with strawberry colored hair wearing a familiar peculiar smile on her face stood in front of him and offered her hand, palm down; not quite a handshake but not quite dissimilar. Her skin was cold but soft, and she smelled like flowers.

In a practiced but charmingly songlike voice, she asked him, Would you like some help seeing you to an available table in the dining room, Mr. Kaye?

No, he answered abruptly, unsure, his voice raspy but not lost. Then, I dont think I can eat right now, actually.

Of course, Mr. Kaye, thats understandable. She smiled a perfectly considerate smile, bright white teeth and red lips, and a friendly nod.
Soothing classical violin music whispered across the cold cafeteria from overhead speakers in the ceiling distributed all throughout the room.

My name is Helen, as it were. Everyone calls me Nurse Helen. You do remember me, dont you, Mr. Kaye?

Of course he did. Hed been administered the proper amounts of anesthetics as the room had filled up with doctors in blue, and the brilliant overhead fluorescents blinked on in patches up above him, flooding his vision with white. But before he was drowned out, drifting off into a painless nap the medicine urged on to ease his body into quiet submission before the operation had begun, hed been introduced to Nurse Helen by one of the friendlier doctors. Shed smiled so reassuringly, said hello and put her face mask on over the studied bun of her hair, nestling over her nose and mouth like a bubble. He knew she was still smiling under the surgical mask because of the way her eyes had squinted as she tilted her head just a bit in his direction.

This was that nurse, whod been there for him.

How are your arms feeling this morning, Mr. Kaye?

Dazed, slow, not wanting to look down at his strange-fitting arms, he sighed. The way she said his name sounded harsh in the emptiness of sound around them, as though he were trapped somewhere. Please, he said. Please call me Alan.

With a hand on his shoulder, warm and friendly, she smiled again, and it was a nice smile, though she wouldnt touch the end of his shoulder or look down at his arms.

He did, though.

Alan looked down at his arms.

The doctor had removed the unsalvageable remains of the grasping limbs hed grown and lived 38 years with, taking them each off at the shoulder, and theyd been replaced with octopus tentacles.

He tried as best he could, but could not get these new limbsthe tentaclesto move. Searching through memory for the nerves in his arms, for any sort of feeling that was like fingers, or a hand; to his horror the shriveling circle suction cups near the curling tips of the tentacles flared and contracted.

Alan winced.

Nurse Helen squeezed his shoulder a little tighter, reassuringly. It may take some time, Mr. Kayesorry . . . Alanbut before long, youll find movement to return to you at a natural, productive rate. Well be here for you while and until you fully rehabilitate the use of muscle movement, so whenever you need me, just call my name.

She glanced fleetingly down to the soft gray tentacles dangling lifelessly from the sleeves of his spotted gray hospital gown, then looked back into his eyes, with a wide, close-mouthed smile hung over her face that was both friendly and reassuring as well as trustworthy. But she looked a bit worried somewhere behind all that surety; a glossy forefront of a look that promises but doesnt quite physically come through in the end.

However, its very important that we keep them wet, Alan. Perhaps we should go back to the emergency room now and have the doctor submerse them in water while we wait for your appetite to return. She started to lead the way out of the cafeteria, offering her hand again, ahead of them, for him to make the first step.

He nodded, slowly, looking off toward a few dozen people with their heads down who were eating lunch at the tables in the dining room, with their fingers curled around the handles of cold coffee cups, lifting steamless black drinks to their lips, cutting small bits of food with forks and knives, stirring cold soup.

Okay, Nurse Helen, Alan breathed very quietly, still watching the people in the dining hall, who all had their heads down, probably thinking about their various somebodies up above in one of the many cold hospital rooms, hooked to machines, heart rates shifting throughout the day and night.

He tried to move the tentacles around again. All he got were more flared suction cups.