Dr. James Redburn turned his alarm clock off before the buzzing started. His biological clock, his physiology, and the mechanized world’s clock were now in synchronicity, in rhythm. It had gone that far. It pulled and stretched. But, it was the mechanized world of the flesh, the human machine: the kidneys, the liver, heart and lungs, the blood, plasma and all the inner workings of the human body was where this stretch and pull had crystallized. Now James considered himself an excellent physician, and also, was thought an excellent physician by his colleagues.
His hands were intricate tools. They were child-like in their appearance, small, strong and lean, symmetrical in every way. There wasn’t a kink or a blemish on any of his fingers. But …the greatest residue left by this new collaboration, this crystallization, was the blending the belonging, the incredible confidence James now felt. Was it the cause, or the effect from the pull and stretch? Nonetheless, it was all committed to memory, all absorbed, as was James. Nothing could be done.
First, it was that one dream. Then it was the other dream. James was a murderer, in his dreams. He was killing people. But the dreams were still hazy, blurry, full of dread, and anxiety. He was forced to watch and re-watch a surgery that he had performed ---with mistakes. It was unthinkable, again and again.
He saw himself operate, yet was unable to correct those past mistakes. To get to here, sometimes you have to lift the spleen or twist a section of the gut. It would be easy to leave a nick with your scalpel.
But still: hazy, blurry were his dreams, so James started fitting in the empty pieces of the ghoulish puzzle with his own thoughts. The self torture was under way. It was a correction that should have taken place long ago. The pattern seemed inescapable: The pattern of madness!!
Suddenly, at the hospital where James worked at an accident was heard! It was horrible, unthinkable. The hospital where James worked at was privy to this information immediately. The preparations were under way. It was a well-coordinated chaotic attack to try to save lives. Already the estimate was sixty five dead and twice that amount injured. Everybody was needed. Every person involved with the inner workings of the hospital would have their schedule tossed and juggled. It could possibly go on for days.
They brought the injured in. The people closest to the end would be looked at first, evaluated, put on medication, or brought to the surgery room (OR). It went on and on. A woman needing radical surgery was still on a stretcher in the lobby. Judgments had to be made immediately. Her next breath could be her last. Others could be saved now. She would be left, on a stretcher, exactly where she was brought in.
One day later the woman on the stretcher, that others thought her next breath could be her last, was still breathing. They brought her into James’s element, the main operating theatre. There he morphed everybody’s shadow. The rows of seats ran up twenty feet in every direction for observation. Other doctors, colleagues, doctors from away as seven hundred miles, and the friends and family of the victim filled the forum.
His intricate tools, his hands, grabbed a scalpel and started to cut. James was in his element, but not completely comfortable? How long can a person go without sleep? But, at first, the operation was going better than expected.
James was almost ready to close-up the patient ---successful! He was almost finished. But when he turned to accept the accolades he saw that his scalpel nicked an artery, a main vein, something? Perhaps his scalpel nicked an organ. He saw the blood start to trickle out. He continued accepting the accolades, and with a quick stitch closed the soon to be dead patient up.
The End
