Mazey - ER Tango

Monday

I lost count of IV drips and began to dose. The nurse moved like a veiled thing, taking things away, putting them back, piercing and piercing and piercing.

I think at some point Eddy came by, his voice was paper burning in my ear. Gone before I could read it, but his hands, his cold palms, I knew he was there until he couldn’t be.

This wasn’t happening; I’m too young to die in a hospital bed.

Tuesday

Eddy didn’t come; I was inconsolable. I wanted my mother, my fathers rich voice, my little sisters questions. No one would say where my family had gone.

My cordial attempts turned dour, then frantic, and finally I managed to knock the needled nurse to the ground. I’ll never forget, vials of every color breaking around her. Even with bare feet I got off the bed to finish the job.

I probably would have, if I had been more than a broken mass of bones. It must have been the pain meds, I don’t recall feeling much after that seething.

Wednesday

A new nurse came, more my age with sympathy in her processed hair and skin. She was polite enough to leave when Eddy came in.

It hurt to smile, what’s wrong with my face, I kept asking. He skirted the question, an old hand at deception.

“Your still pretty, my rough diamond”, He went to kiss me, it burned, reminded me of glass, everything sharp I’d ever touched.

“Hey, Eddy Teddy, I know what you’re thinking. Don’t you dare, you bastard.” It was deadly, the urge in his eyes, but I had to smile. I loved to verbally abuse him, he took it so well.

“It’s already in the cards, peach.” His voice, was like an old record, preserved perfectly from the Jazz Age.

“One more, one more sunset? One more day on the pier?”, he answered by leaving, quiet as night fall.

Thursday

When I was myself, they broke the news.

I was an orphan, thanks to a drunk driver.

Food seemed to rot in front of me, people looked like corpses, I saw nothing but the dead and the dying. They waited an hour before they told me about the clot in my brain, the sever head injury, the miracle of life.

I wasn’t a miracle. I was a gibbering mass of sobs all day. It went by quickly, eclipse by a fitful sleep.

Eddy knew better than to come around.

Friday

The nurses were changing shifts, ten minutes to midnight when I hear the door open. Even his footsteps were guilty; at least he let me hear them this time.

I refused to look up, just laid there, waiting for a coffin, or a kiss.

He climbed onto the bed, his weight sank the mattress in and I felt like I would fall away from him, go to the place that matched the blooming peace in my chest.

“It was always going to end this way, baby,” he crooned and lifted my chin. My neck became a riot of pain. He kissed the artery he loved, and then it was just a pinch, and nothing.