Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: WILD (11/16/17)
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TITLE: Kathy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Maxx .
11/21/17 -
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I calculated the timing once more. Hospital check-in at 8:30, first consultation at 9:00. How long might that take? Half an hour? Then the needles, cat scans, and probes, making it, what, noon? Simple, done and out. At least according to the plan. Unless they found something serious: a tumor, blood clot, or worse.
And so many things were much, much worse.
I forced the nightmares from my thoughts as the clock on the wall crept to 5:30.
I loved her, almost as much then as I do now. But in that moment of shadow I cursed the depth of my feelings which pulsated like a raw and vulnerable wound cut to my depths. Better to have not loved at all, I swore, than to have loved and lost her.
Was I going to lose her? In some operating room undergoing an emergency procedure?
I closed my eyes and tried to pray but all I could see was my sweet Kathy draped in surgical green, bound by tubes and wires, splayed open under searing lights. “Dear God,” I whispered. “Save her. Give her strength. Fill us both with peace.”
But the words seemed futile beneath the onslaught of my wild imagination.
I stood, pacing anew through my stale apartment, following the pathway I’d already traversed a thousand times. Memories tugged at me with every step: candles half burned on the dining room table, ticket stubs forgotten on the kitchen counter, the blanket we cuddled under by the campfire crumpled in the corner. And her picture, framed near my recliner, with those eyes, those innocent, loving, helpless eyes.
“Omaha’s not so far,” I muttered aloud to nobody. “You could catch a flight, or drive it in four hours. Be there before 10:00.” I felt in my pockets for keys and wallet. “She might need someone to care for her, make decisions she can’t.” I stared out the window at the inky dark horizon, the sun now fully lost. “Or hold her hand while she sleeps, comfort her if the beeping and whirring of the ICU machines are too frightening.”
I couldn’t bear the thought of Kathy alone and scared – like I was, and had been all day.
I started toward the door but stopped. “Wait,” I scolded. “Don’t be a fool. Try sending another text. Maybe she just forgot her phone or needed to charge it. Or dinner. She endured an unexpectedly long day of tests and is now eating a relaxing meal.” I forced a smile. “There’s always hope. It’ll be fine.”
“And if it’s not?” I argued. “If the doctors don’t know my number? If she’s incapacitated? Dying?”
I pulled the phone from my pocket and unlocked the screen. No messages received. No calls missed. I tapped in a text, “How are you? Is everything ok? Do you need anything? Please call. I love you.”
I pushed send.
And waited.
Waited as the clock skulked interminably forward.
Waited as petrifying visions picked at the edges of my mind.
Something surely went wrong with her tests, those supposedly simple tests. Had to be trouble. She’d be through recovery and back in a room by now if it was a minor issue. So, it must be extensive, something requiring specialists or transfer to a trauma center. Maybe a cerebral hemorrhage or, God forbid, an embolism. My grandmother died from an embolism.
I squeezed the phone in my fist and shook it toward the sky. “Why won’t you answer me? Send me something, anything!”
But the device stayed silent as the nighttime swallowed my flagging courage, my overwrought mind spun horrific images, and the dread in my heart thickened.
“Oh Kathy. Don’t leave me.” I sank to my knees and wept.
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