Paresthesia
Paresthesia
She closed her eyes and let the smell overcome her—stale blood and alcohol. She relished in the feel of the hospital, toes curling against the soles of her off-white clogs as she reached the front desk, and collected her patient’s charts. Taking a seat, she quietly flipped through the papers, eyes glancing to each diagnosis, mentally stacking the order and time needed for each room. Appendix just out in room 323, car accident in room 317, flu in room 304, burns in room 312 internal bleeding in room 335, and whatever else was dragged in off the street. She eased back in her chair, pen between her teeth as she decided to begin with the appendix case.
“Morning Dolores! Ready for another day in paradise?” one of the others called as she prepared the medicine for her rooms.
Dolores’ smile came naturally, “Always.”
Glancing at the chart to assure herself of the patient’s name, she entered the room with only a brief warning knock, “Good morning Mr. Jones. How are you feeling today?” the practiced words flowed perfectly from smiling lips.
“Who the hell are you? Bursting in my room-“
“I’m Dolores Marisela, I’ll be your day nurse.” She wrote her name on the board by his bed complete with a flower, for health, “Now, I just need you to answer a few questions for me.”
“Fine, just give me the damn pills, my side’s killing me.”
She fought down the smile that tugged at her lips, “Sir… On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most severe, what would you rate your pain?”
“Eight. Eight at least.”
She nodded, lifting the edge of his gown and examining the slit across his side. Glowing, in the dark, radiating with that delicious tinge, “Sir, could you describe the pain for me?” she made sure the gloves were on before she chanced touching the tender spot.
“It’s like my whole God damned side is on fire. Now what the hell are you doing? Stop touching it!”
“Sorry sir, making sure it’s healing properly.” She removed her hand, and quietly disposed of her gloves, ‘Here’s your medicine.” She carefully poured the pills into his hand and watched him wash them down with a cup of water.
“I’ll be back to check in on you. Please call if you need anything.”
The flu room was next. Wearing a mask over her nose and mouth, she adjusted the IV fluids and admired the fever’s effects on the body, contorting and twisting with grief, “Good morning Mrs. Handres. I’ll be your day nurse, Dolores Marisela. How are you feeling today?”
“Oh, I’m fine dear. Could I maybe get some more water?” the voice was feeble, like paper balled up too many times to ever be readable again.
She continued her speech without pause, “Ma’m… On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most severe, what would you rate your pain?” She pulled this room’s pills and a cup of water from the cart.
“Oh… It’s not so bad anymore. Just the usual aches you know?”
The smile tugged at the corner of her lips again. She had been struck with the flu of course, and had surveyed the spasms in her body, watched as the world spun around her. She’d listened to her stomach growl, and occasionally seen its growls escape into yellow splatter in the toilet water. “Can you describe the pain for me?” she held out the pills and water, watching the women down them, grimacing.
“It’s like I’m hot and cold all at the same time. My body just won’t stop moving. It hurts everywhere, but it’s just a dull throb. Really honey, I’m fine.”
Dolores nodded, eyes on the shaking red hands, fingers clutching tight at the sheets, “I’ll be back to check in on you. Please call if you need anything.” she poured the woman a cup of water and then stepped back into the hall.
Next was the bleeder, entering the room she could already see him writhing on the bed, the morphine drip by his bed already empty. “Good Morning Mr. James. I’m your day nurse, my name is Dolores M-“
“I need more. The pump stopped.” His breathing was ragged, blood pulsing loose against his organs.
She nodded, moving closer to him, Sir… On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most severe, what would you rate your pain?” she pulled aside his gown
“Jesus fucking Christ! Fifteen!” it was the closest she had heard to a scream in a long time.
She remembered on her fifteenth birthday she had locked herself in the bathroom and spent the day practicing her scream, trying to get it to sound authenticate, to make it sound painful. She’d never been able to get it believable.
She ran her hands over the sight of the bleed, a deep green bruise across the abdomen, hard and hot to the touch, the only tangible proof of the violence under the skin. He screamed when she squeezed, the sound was perfect.
“Jesus lady what the hell are you doing?”
“Sir, could you describe the pain for me?” she haltingly pulled her hands away, bony fingers longing to play with this new fleshy instrument of screams.
“Like my guts are going to explode! What the hell kind of question is that?”
“Standard procedure sir,” she very carefully put up a new IV of the pain numbing liquid, watching the liquid slowly flow into his veins.
She silently offered him some water and left the room, hands running over her arms, searching for the IV that she use to believe had to be in her arm, long scars along the thin limbs from years of trying to find a way to rip the invisible IV out.
The burn was next and even from in the hall the scent caressed her nose. She paused in the hall, breathing in deeply, her lips curling at the familiarity. She glanced at her own hand, skin red, wrinkled like a glove stretched and pulled back; the skin didn’t fit anymore.
It had happened just after she’d graduated high school. Standing in the kitchen, waiting for the burner to heat up so she could start her dinner. She hadn’t noticed anything strange until the smell. Glancing down all she could do was let out a carefully rehearsed scream and watch the flesh bubble on the stove.
Entering the room, she tried to breathe lightly, not letting the smell soak in too deep, too intoxicating. “Good morning Mister Wilkinson. I’ll be your new day nurse, Dolores Marisela. How are you feeling today?”
He turned his head with difficulty, his neck red and smooth, plastic skin. “Thirsty.” Even his voice was burnt.
“Of course sir.” She glanced down at the cups of medicine, “Sir… On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most severe, what would you rate your pain?”
“Ten. Same as yesterday. Same as everyday.” He sounded tired.
“Can you describe the pain for me?” she carefully picked up his cup of pills, and small cup of water.
He closed his eyes as she brought the pills to his lips, and then the water. He swallowed slowly, savoring the chill running down his throat, “Constant. Just forever.”
“Forever?” she paused, script ripping across her mind.
“It just never stops.”
“But how does it feel sir?”
“Like I live in hell all the time. Fire always burning.”
She stayed still for a moment, before returning to rehearsed movements, checking the IV and pouring more water down his throat before quietly leaving after one last breath of the dead air.
Still shaking she continued on her rounds, the car accident was last for that morning. She could feel her heart racing, blood exploding through her body, overwhelming to the senses she lacked. Burnt words still in her ears.
Forever.
She entered with barely a knock, hands shaking, “Ms. Roberts? I’m your day nurse Dolores and I just was coming to check on you.” The script was gone, the words, their familiar taste, were gone. She approached slowly, breath catching at the back of her throat.
There was no response in the room, besides the slow steady beep of the heart monitor and the rasping of the ventilator. Machines were the only life in room 317. It was quiet.
“Ms. Roberts?” she moved closer, inhaling the scent of fresh blood and casts only just set, “Ma’m… On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most severe, what would you rate your pain?”
She moved closer, her eyes jumped from the broken arm to the broken leg, the neck brace, the bloody gauze wrapped around her head, protecting the slivers of her face that hadn’t been left smeared on the road.
Her trembling hands moved slowly, mechanically knowing their job as she pulled back the dressings, preparing new ones, pausing before she could reapply the bandages. “Could you describe the pain for me?” her voice was a whisper against the raw flesh, pus still draining.
She reapplied clean bandages, and checked the casts. Leg suspended in the air to heal, wrapped from thigh to ankle, now more metal than bone.
It had been just before she started college. She could remember the sound of bones snapping. Her arm bent backwards, elbow to palm, limp and useless. But the sound. Like the universe had exploded inside her body. She had become a vessel of destruction, of fragments, and shatters.
That had been the first time the doctor had asked her how bad it hurt. Asked her to give her pain a number.
“Zero.” She had answered.
“Zero?” the doctor had stopped in his motions. Stopped and stared at her, “You mean ten? Ten is the most painful.”
But she had been insistent, “Zero. Zero is for nothing.”
She had known then that was the wrong answer. That she was mistaken. Pain was not zero. What it was, she still didn’t know. It was in that doctor’s gaze she had seen what she would become. What she had to become.
She listened to the machines slowly wheeze and whimper; a smile tugged at her lips, “So that’s what pain’s like,” she slowly adjusted the IVs and checked the machines. The only thing she had ever been able to do.
Published 2009 The Peacock’s Feet Literary Magazine
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The Horror! | IndieHorror.org Said:
on January 16, 2011 at 7:31 pm
[...] literary = good, genre = bad so I was devastated when a professor of mine told me my short story Parasthesia was ‘horror genre crap.’ [...]
The Horror! « Judy Black Cloud Said:
on May 22, 2012 at 12:17 am
[...] of literary = good, genre = bad so I was devestated when a professor of mine told me my short story Parasthesia was ‘horror genre crap.’ [...]