5:42
As I watched the plaster tiles pass over my head, I tried to count them. I never had much success keeping track of the train cars that made me late for rehearsal every Thursday evening, and these tiles were going, I calculated, at least 4 times as fast as the Union Pacific’s fastest engine. The morphine told me my math was off. I gave up, and decided to dedicate the rest of the gurney ride to lining up each of my blinks with the passing of a tile. Before we reached the end of the hall, a calm, forced voice came from behind my head and through the hands on my shoulders.
“Could you please stop blinking like that?”
I could feel that uncertain question mark pool up in the bottom of my throat. The man’s voice reminded me of a red woven blanket and my morning coffee.
I continued to blink, while shouting, “the Union Pacific has to be precisely on time, every Thursday at 5:43, and I have to give these tiles the blinks they deserve!”
The red blanket, morning coffee man moved his hand from my shoulder, over my cheek and left eye, and through my hair. He started laughing that thin, right in front of the tears sort of laugh. The last chuckle caught, and I missed my last blink before we passed into the elevator as the red blanket, morning coffee man began to cry.
“Ma’am, could you please repeat the words we told you to remember?” interjected a nurse, working hard to cover the tears with her voice.
“Bookshelf. Dragon. Pepper.”
“Very good. Now, the helicopter right outside these doors is going to take you to Memorial Hospital, like we told you. Your husband here will be going with you. I am going to give you another dose of morphine now, okay?” the nurse asked, asking without expecting an answer as she pushed a syringe into my forearm.
I felt the morphine snake up to my brain almost instantly. As it started to thumb through my senses, shutting me down slowly like a line of light switches, I looked at the red blanket, morning coffee man. He was smiling and crying. I was smiling. As the elevator doors opened, light pouring in but my ability to see it quickly disappearing, he leaned down and kissed my forehead.