Tap tap tap

I looked over to the door where a nurse stood with my clipboard in his hands. The pain meds and I grinned just a little too widely at him.

Male nurse… “Murse,” I mumbled.

“How’s that?” He asked, walking closer to hear me more clearly.

“Hii…” I trailed off, peering out the window.

Murse smiled, setting the clipboard on the table next to me before turning to the bathroom on the left. I listened as he emptied out the pointless urine pan attached into the toilet bowl. Why have a bed pan clipped to the toilet? Double toilet… stupid. My cheeks flushed.

“Bedpan,” I mumbled to myself. “Bed pan…bed pan…bedpanbedpanbedpan…”

Murse re-emerged from the bathroom, “How are we feeling?” he asked.

“Mmfine. Mmheads hurts.”

His eyes scanned over the cuts that dotted my face.

“Sshurtss.” I repeated.

“Yeah you’ve got a pretty serious gash back there.” The murse gently tilted my head to the left to have a look at it. Weeks later my mother would describe the cut as having resembled a fat lipped gaping mouth before the staples.

“Cnnew seeth stapless?” My tongue seemed to slap around in my mouth. “…Why canneye talk?”

“Slurred speech is a common concussion symptom.” Murse reclaimed his clipboard and flipped through my charts, brow furrowed, “Shouldn’t be a permanent thing.”

Shouldn’t be?

“Mmaye bleeding?”

He looked up into my earnest gaze, “we’re monitoring that.”

Thatsawhy my hair wascurlee bforr.”

“Yeah?”

“Ssnaturally curly…I left fer work ssmorning with a sstraight pontail immhair.” I pointed a weak finger at my head.

Murse listened patiently.

“Ileff with a sstraight hair an woke up here later ­­­witthis mess,” My crusty matted hair crinkled when I moved. “I wunnered where the gelcameferrom…mmaye bothering yew?”

Murse shook his head.

“Nnyway, wasntgell. Wasbludd. Blood all’vr me, nmy hair. Ssoaked…Thassa lotf blood, thas really creepy…”

“Well the important thing is that it stays away from your brain,” he smiled encouragingly, looking down at my charts and checking my vitals, or whatever else was written on there.

“Soo I wentto the sshhowr…threwupp inthh hall,”

“That would be the vertigo.” I remember the way he smiled at me; it was almost a smirk. As if he knew I would be fine, or was indifferent to the reality that I might not be. “We’re going to have to keep you here until you can show improvement.”

I tilted my head, feeling a tiny flame light deep within the nerves beneath the cut, slowly squelched by Morphine. “Mmproffmt?”

Murse looked at me, I remember his dark messy hair and blue scrubs. “We need to monitor the blood in your head. You’ll have another scan early tomorrow morning. Before we let you go home we need to see that you can walk properly…and talk,” he looked back down at the chart as if it was magically populated with new information.

“Tlk?” I clucked, “Ayecnn tlk jussfine.”

It was a weak argument. We sat there in silence for a minute before Murse stood.

“Alright Luciana, you should get some rest now. I’ll be back to check you in a little bit.”

I watched Murse as he hung the clipboard on my door. I remember wondering where he would go at the end of the day. Where his friends were waiting to meet him. What his street clothes looked like. As I drifted off to sleep I remember wanting to have known him, thinking of the blood that was slowly seeping towards my brain, wondering why the last human face I saw before I might die was one of a complete stranger, taking care of me because it was his job.

Luciana, 24