Yesterday at our write-in, the word prompt we were given was: Patience. But when I started to write I wasn’t sure if it was patients or patience so I combined them both. This is the wee flash fiction story I wrote during our hour session.
He didn’t want to go to the hospital. He just hated hospitals.
It didn’t matter how beautiful the lobby was, as soon as you got inside the workings of the place there was that smell that only hospitals had; the odor of plastic and blood.
He climbed out of the Uber and wobbled into the Emergency Room of St. Josephs. The waiting area was packed. Leaning heavily on the cane that had once belonged to his father, Oscar made his way to the desk presided over by a very large, white woman with orange-ish, red hair and clashing red lipstick that bled into the smoker lines around her mouth.
As Oscar sank into the hard plastic chair, Red asked, “Yes, what’s the problem this morning?”
When Oscar spoke, it was clear that the right side of his face wasn’t working. His right eye was drooping, too. In a slurred manner of speaking he said, “I woke up like this today. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me…” He trailed off. Looking to her for expertise, for an opinion on what she thought might be wrong with him.
Red stared at him, then asked, “You mean that slackness in your face?”
Oscar nodded.
“Are you having any other symptoms? Shortness of breath? Chest pain? Any pain down your arm?”
“No Ma’am”, Oscar replied. He was raised right. Respectful to people.
“I see.” Red asked his name, typed it into her computer, and then pointed to some cubicles to her left. “Go have a seat over there so they can collect your information.”
“Thank you.” He replied before he made his way to the young man waving him over.
Oscar sat in another hard plastic chair facing the young man who had spiked black hair and a stud piercing his eyebrow. Oscar tried not to stare.
The young man wanted to see Oscar’s papers; his driver’s license, his Medicare card, and any other insurance cards he might have. Oscar was having a hard time using his arm so he had to stand in order to fish his wallet out of his back pocket. Exhausted he plopped back down into the chair and handed over the cards.
So many questions. The young man went on and on and on. Oscar was struggling to concentrate and when it got to the payment part of the interrogation the atmosphere altered. The young man wanted a credit card.
Oscar was confused. “But you don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
The young man, who went through these sorts of discussions multiple times, every single day, rolled his eyes, “You’re not being billed, yet. We just need the information on file.”
Oscar wasn’t the sort to argue. Still holding his wallet, he opened it and started searching for his credit card. He couldn’t find it. The cards seemed to swim in front of his eyes, he couldn’t focus on any of them. His hand shook as he tried to pull one out. He stared at the hand he knew so well. He’d never seen it shake before.
The young man was growing annoyed, “Excuse me, there are other people waiting to check in.”
Oscar turned to look and sure enough, there was now a line at Red’s receptionist desk.
“Busy morning, huh?” He tried to smile at the young man but his face felt so odd. He struggled to keep his eye open. “Here, can you see the blue Visa card?” Oscar handed his wallet to the young man who snatched it with an exasperated sigh.
Oscar thought, this guy doesn’t like his job very much.
Once the credit card had been placed into a little machine for reading, along with his other cards, the unhappy employee handed the wallet and cards back to Oscar, then said, “Go have a seat in the waiting area and you’ll be called soon.”
Oscar was struggling to replace the cards into the wallet when he was told, again, “Sir, go have a seat in the waiting area.”
Oscar finally slid the cards into their slots in the wallet and stood, trying to put the wallet back in his rear pocket while finding his balance with the cane. He swayed and blinked a few times to clear his vision; for a moment he feared he’d fall. But by the time the young man cleared his throat Oscar was ready to make the walk to the chairs.
There were only a few available and all of them were on the far side of the room. It seemed like a marathon. Oscar weaved unsteadily between the two teens with their long legs stretched out in front of them, oblivious with their headphones on and phone blocking their face. One gave Oscar a scowl when he had to lift his legs out of the way. Next was the mom, whose eyes were rimmed red, who pulled her twin toddlers out of the way like Oscar was contagious even though he tried to give her and her babies a smile.
I must look a fright, He thought.
As he went to sit in the chair next to another elderly man, that man scooched his chair over, as if his privacy had been invaded.
Oscar thought he’d never experienced such relief when he practically fell into the padded but still uncomfortable chair. He was breathing hard and was now, indeed, having some pain in his chest. He thought it was some residual heartburn from that Beef Stroganoff his neighbor had brought over last night. It had been delicious but so heavy. Oscar placed his hand on his chest and took some deep breaths. Slowly feeling calmer, slowly drifting off to sleep.
948 words
Flash fiction is a brief fictional narrative that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as “twitterature”); the “dribble” (also known as the “minisaga”, 50 words); the “drabble” (also known as “microfiction”, 100 words); “sudden fiction” (750 words); “flash fiction” (1,000 words); and “microstory”. Source: WIKI