The Doorstep Diaries, Part II

Nurse was the first to notice.

She had been resuscitating a patient in room 471. She pushed the paddles of the defibulators against his thick chest and had been sending jolt after jolt through his body for five minutes when, down the hall, Death was smothering himself in Sally’s breasts.

The man lay there. Nurse sweated. Holding paddles against an electrically charged, three hundred pound man was no easy task. But it had been some time since his heart had stopped. It was his third heart attack. He had flatlined. She stopped. He was dead.

She turned off the annoying hum of the EKG machine. She leaned against the bed and wiped her forehead. She would like a cigarette. It had been 22 years since she quit cold turkey, but anytime someone died on her watch the craving came back.

Mr. Arnold, that was his name, was on his second heart—one heart attack with his biological ticker, and then two with his replacement. He had spent a good deal of time in the hospital on Nurses’ floor. She had warned him about fat foods, chortled on about the benefits of exercise, tried to sell him on a healthy lifestyle.

Fat people was something Nurse didn’t understand. Eating healthy was easy: you just ate healthy. Like quitting smoking. In the 80s she smoked two packs a day. Then she quit. Because when you quit smoking you just stopped smoking.

“Fatass,” she murmured, and covered Mr. Arnold with a blanket.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Fatass,” she said again. She had a habit of arguing with herself—though not usually in such a masculine voice—all nurses did on the night shift. “Couldn’t stay away from the bacon, could you?”

“Is there bacon? That’d be an improvement. The food is horrible here.” Mr. Arnold pulled the sheet from over his face. “I could eat, thanks.”

For a moment she thought to scream. But Nurse did not scream. It was not something a professional would do, even if a dead man had suddenly returned to life. She checked the EKG machine. His pulse was as flat as the horizon. She checked the sensors on his chest. “You’re cold!” he giggled. The sensors were secure. Nurse checked his wrists, but there was no pulse there, either.

“You’re dead,” she said.

“Am not.”

“You have no pulse,” she said.

He looked at the machine. “I suppose I don’t. Huh.” He smiled. "Well that's lucky."

She picked up Mr. Arnold’s bedpan and struck him on the head. It took a few solid strokes but finally Mr. Arnold collapsed back on his mattress, bleeding from his hair line.

She wiped her brow. For the second time in as many minutes, she wanted a cigarette.