Push

10:50 creeps up silent and smooth, piggybacking on each sip of the pungent black coffee pilfered from the abandoned family lounge.  No one drinks dark roast after 9pm.  Was that acrid aftertaste signaling stale, or burnt?

Doesn’t matter.

It’s 10:53.  In another slithering 60 seconds a swift swipe of my badge will mark my begrudged arrival on what appears, even from such distance, to be a unit in chaos.  The shrill bells, the unrelenting beeps, the urgent family member signaling various needs from this doorway or that.  A repeating melody with occasional swells of intensity, tonight unrelenting.  Lonely stretchers line the hallway.  Abandoned wheelchairs crowd the doorway of a poorly stocked supply room.  When my lukewarm cup hits the counter surface, it’s as if setting an elaborate line of dominoes into motion.  First one falls, an assignment sheet is tossed towards me.  And just as a cascade of tiles interconnected by simple physics, I’m unable to consider the lines quickly enough to anticipate the forming picture.

But first, I read his name.

“Twenty two?” I mutter aloud, though unintentionally.

A set of black scrubs with a long brown ponytail rushes past.  “And a hot mess.  Sad story.  I’ll meet you there to introduce you!”

I don’t recognize her.

I should’ve called out sick.

I should’ve offered the shift to this or that nutty individual seeking to spend more time within these walls.

Instead I tap in a username and accompanying password.  I’m about to click his name when it washes over me.  A whitecap on an ocean surface telling of the storm to come.  I ignore the seashells and set my course head on into the unknown.  I need to see him.  Maybe it was disbelief at the dire condition of someone only a few decades into his existence.  Maybe it was the unease that twenty two years of life could lead to this particular corridor of such a large, widely specialized hospital.

My stride is lengthy.

Inadvertently?

Subconsciously.

The dominoes tumble on.

It’s when my hand hits the door to sound that first knock that the alarm sounds.  The one that tells me he’s not alone.  Thank you to the stars aligning that night, that he wasn’t alone.  This is probably what I would’ve sobbed aloud to an empty space, had I found the time to.

But something in the manner of which that alarm hits your eardrums, the quality of the sound waves on your very skin somehow latches onto time itself.  Dulls the sense of forward motion through the universe.  The second hand lurches ahead with maximum effort under the weight.  Peculiar.

Slate grey scrubs stand at the head of the bed.  His eyes are wide as he scans the face of an eerily still figure upon the bed.  Twenty two years etched into a face the same grey of the scrubs to his right.  The grey of those soft clouds that blanket April rainy skies.  That grey.  As a loud rattling and squeaky set of wheels behind me signals the arrival of the crash cart, and plenty of backup, I don’t notice shoving slate scrubs to the side.  How his foot tangles in the IV tubing.  How a spray of bright and angry blood splashed my front as if in objection and disdain of such hassle.

My arms, my legs, they’re too short.  I don’t notice the crowd that accumulates, an octopus of frenzied urgency collapsing in on a lifeless twenty two years.

I’m busy.

I’m climbing into the bed.  My fingers entwine without a thought.  My arms extend and stiffen.  I find the landmark without measuring.

“Count!” A faceless shout reminds me, from the mist of the evaporating room around me.

A crack splits the commotion of the room.  A crack that echoes up the muscles, fibers, hairs of my arms.

You’re still a boy.  How did you end up here?

“ONE!”

Push.

-------------------

She figured from a young age she’d never make it out alive.  The lights low, the door closing her off from any help that might’ve existed in the world she imagined only pretended to tolerate her.  She was busy, scrawling, etching, engraving her skin silently and without hesitation, fear of pain.  She found a sort of peace in the act.  A relief at the pain that promised her she was still alive, despite a numbness that bathed her, an apathy she dreaded waking to each morning. 

The length of her arms bore angry, thin hash marks, roman numerals marking a measure of time only she could feel ticking away in her heart.  Arms she hid.  A secret she knew, as strongly as she was certain…the time was running out, just as quickly as she ran out of unscarred tissue from the elbow to the wrist.

--------------

I haven’t researched him.

I’m not prepared.

What am I fighting here?

Is that chinese lettering on his left flank?

“TWO!”

Push.

-----------------

The bright lights cast a glow upon her wide smile.  A flush of excitement colors her cheeks.  Happy birthday, she sings to herself, accompanying the background whirring melody of other tattoo guns.  The artist motions to a bare patch of freshly washed and dried skin just above her right elbow.  She nods eagerly and gasps with such sincere delight at the image transferred to the soft flesh.  Such perfect, solid lines, as bold and determined as her resolve, as the firm and sure as the chair she occupies.

She’s too busy for second guesses.

Her smile endures.

Even at the sting of the gun as it imprints the outline onto her anticipating bicep.

----------------

Was he alone on the ride here?

Did he drive?

Did someone ride in the back of an ambulance at his side?

Did someone hold his hand?

“THREE!”

Push.

-------------------

The sun shines unhindered by the clouds that gently drift across the bluest sphere hanging above them.  They honestly wouldn’t have noticed a tornado wandering directly down their path.  Not at that moment.  Shy smiles distract.  Soft laughs and subtly sweet glances into each others eyes.  The world outside of their magnetic pull ceased to exist for minutes that seemed as hours to her.  She wanted to remember every single line and curve of his cheek.  Each hair that adorned his crown.  The glare from his glasses.  The salt and pepper flecks in his beard.  Just his face.  But she didn’t.

What she did was…

The warmth radiating from that all too brief embrace.  Wrapping, engulfing, the universe pulsating outwards from her heart, supernovas imploding one by one behind eyelids that fluttered shut as she instinctively honed every sense in on that one singular and extraordinary snippet of time.

As if destiny insisted upon declaring its pesky presence. 

But she’s too busy to consider it right then.

He wrapped his arms around her, and she would always fondly (although bitter sweetly) recall how her reach didn’t quite envelop him in the same way.

----------------

The doctor shouts a familiar chorus of instructions.

We engage in a sort of waltz, a foxtrot, a scripted choreography meant to spark a life.

“FOUR!”

Push.

----------------

Pulsating, loud and fervent bass rings above her head from a heavy suspended speaker.   She melts into the middle of a sea sprinkled with the thrashing enthusiasts of the band onstage.  Bodies that undulate with grace.  Or, as hers did, jerk about with an awkward and unsure rhythm.  But she barely notices.

She’s busy.

She’s lost in his voice.

She’s moved from within as she throws her arms high above her swaying torso.

-----------------

Twenty-two. 

I imagine he’s too young to be leaving behind anyone who might spend the rest of their little lives mourning the space he’ll leave behind.  Empty space they’ll forever seek to fill as they push onward through life.

Or at least…

I hope.

“FIVE!”

Push.

----------

“PUSH!”

But the nurse between her knees doesn’t look up to confirm her orders are heard and heeded.  She doesn’t need to.

The already pink and protesting ball of brand new flesh greets the room in an uproar.  Laughs from the doctor who quickly draws fluid and debris to allow sweet, unencumbered first breaths of life.  She’s waited nine long and uncomfortable months for this singularly spectacular moment that would forever alter the landscape of her existence.  As the doctor lifts this tiny blanket wrapped creature upwards, she simultaneously reaches down.

Too busy to notice his chuckle resounded between the rest of the team. 

Into her outstretched arms and against her soft chest, the little girl fits just perfectly, as if two pieces at the center of a puzzle.

--------------

He’s fit.  In shape.  But the pronounced muscles of his chest are offering me no resistence.  Why aren’t they fighting?

Surely his heart is just as strong.

Had to be.

Please push back, I beg his much too still countenance.

“SIX!”

Push.

---------------

Clattering weights in controlled machines surround her on a a seat of a lightly stacked chest press.  She tries her best to feign confidence and pride at the forty pounds her aching deltoids, biceps, triceps launch upwards.  Her peripherals catch sight of drooping skin and loose stretch marked tissue welcoming gravity.  She ignores it.

She’s busy.

She’s chasing change.  Hungry for progress.  Yearning for a sleek physique which cost the hefty price of refusing to succumb to self pity.

Even if taut and glistening skin that rippled as she, maybe one day, followed through with one fluid pull up, wasn’t a realistic expectation.

Well, she pushes on.  Her arms will tire long before her resolve.

--------------

College aged. 

Did you drink too much?  Experiment a little too recklessly? Which classes did you miss when you were rushed here?

I’m just guessing.  Is that your university sweater hanging in the corner?

“SEVEN!”

Push.

---------------

A locker.

She remembers with a wistful nostalgia fighting with a combination lock only a year back.  What she wouldn’t give on these Tuesdays with a back-to-back schedule.  Busy Tuesdays.  She typically trudges from one end of the miles-wide campus to the other, one way hurried, the other a saunter, sometimes a meander.

Today with more pep and vigor.  Beside a classmate with an arm slung in a cast who graciously accepts her offer to tow the double load of chemistry and algebra.  With spirited conversation and a light breeze propelling them forward, she cradles the textbooks in her steady arms.

-------------------

I wonder where he’ll go.  What’s waiting for him on the other side?  Is there an other side? 

The steady pulse of the room around us refuses to ponder the possibility.  Frantic.

And assured.

All at once.

Don’t advance.  Don’t go any further.  My hands are begging you with each and every…

“EIGHT!”

Push.

-----------------

Just a door.

She breathes deep.  Exhales slow.  Disbelief tugged at the outermost corner of her racing thoughts.  A surprise at her hesitation.  Just move ahead, she urges her cement shoes.  Wills them silently to forge on.

How could she possibly fear in the face of potentially wonderful change?  She’s waited and longed tirelessly years for some kind of good fortune to come of the combined effort of hard work and perseverance. 

Of busy days and endless nights and sore arms writing just one more sentence.

She straightens up.  In a leather bound portfolio is tucked a freshly printed resume.

Without even one further thought she reaches out in blind faith, to push open the door.

-------------------

Who waits for you at home?  Is someone staring at your empty bed tonight?  Who lays cold and alone past midnight awaiting your safe return?  Who is eagerly awaiting sunrise to hear your voice mutter a groggy, sleep drenched “hello”?

“NINE!”

Push.

--------------------

In her arms she rocks and sways the straggly haired, freshly bathed toddler.  She offers an exhausted and exasperated sort of smile when the big eyes on the fragile and gentle face lock with her own.  She pulls the girl close to her chest.  Hoping the sound of her voice and the reverberating vibrations of love and whole hearted, earnest adoration will settle the babe into sweet rest.

Her lips form some lyric, this or that, from a familiar song.  One that surfaces a ghostly memory of black framed glasses glittering in the sun, of a strong hug on a busy street, of a vibrant dance, of the exuberance of a life lived.  She smiles in sweet gratitude for the physical strength of her arms that can so assuredly nurture this peace within the sweet soul she cradles close to her beating heart.

She pulls her in tighter still.

“I’m, thinkin’ it’s a sign…”

With a heavy sigh, the girl rests her head on the soft inside of her mother’s arm and finally surrenders to slumber.

---------------

Hours?  Minutes? What's passed?

“I have a pulse!”

I back out quickly, as the crowd descends upon him with determined furor to stoke this flame of life.  Brown ponytail is waiting for me, nearly as ashen as Mr. Twenty-Two had been.

“He was fine!  I had no idea, I swear!  He was fine!”

I can’t focus.  The colors and shapes and hustle around me blurs into nothing, and I stumble past her. 

Is that blood on my shirt? “I need to go change.” 

---------------

It isn’t but seconds after switching her phone out of silent mode that it rings shrilly from the pocket of a too small scrub top- the only one she had left in her locker stash. 

The voice at the other end mumbles, “Breakfast?”

She hesitates, eyeing the hem of her tank top that stretches across the front of her thighs.  It’s warm enough outside.  But in disdain she considers her the saggy underside of her arms, her rounded and ill defined shoulders.  All the way down to her forearms, wrists and hands.  The very same ones that hours earlier were far too busy beating a steady throb of life into a man unable to sustain his own rhythm to worry about how they looked in a sleeveless shirt.

Every single atom of muscle memory, of a lifetime’s worth of strength, tenderness, vivacity etched clear down to their bones, imparted unto him with each compression.

The top slips off over the her head and hits the backseat soundlessly.

“I’ll see you soon.”