All I could see were here feet, socks reminiscent of bandages from some war I'd never fought in, blue peaking out between folds of white like they'd been double-wrapped.
"Her nephew is here. Yes, it's gotten a lot worse. Ahuh. Just wanted to check--ahuh...yes..." The blue-scrubbed surgeon stood clear of the doorway with his cell phone, keeping his voice low.
I tried to focus on the six month's old copy of Good Housekeeping in my lap, awaiting the doctor's retrieval of me like a good patient, but...there was more talking, the hum from the room across the hallway evolving into a buzz around words like "cataract," "tumor," "radiation."
A man in clerical garb emerged from the room where all I could see were those stilled feet, and his smiling eyes persisted beneath his slick, baldy scalp.
The surgeon went on, now minimized to a disembodied voice, from within the room; "You're really doing great!" he said with strained enthusiasm, followed by nervous laughter aching to just cry already. "You've still got one ear and one eye...you're doing okay!" he said as he re-positioned the feet which turned out to belong to a lady with the whitest hair.
"I will be okay," said the lady on the gurney, "because I want to be." Her strength only fed my curiosity, and I took a quick glance up from an article about potted plant creations, just long enough to catch the very conspicuously-sized bandage engulfing her left eye.
"Her eye," said the priest man, leaning against the door frame, "was stuck, was attached to her eye-lid by a tumor," he went on to a lady who kind of looked like a receptionist and who seemed to pop up out of nowhere. "She was trying to wash up under there, you know, it was getting encrusted, you know, and so..." the receptionist/rogue wanderer nodded, concerned, as the maybe-nephew went on.
"And so...the wash rag...it got...stuck," the man got ever-so-slightly uncomfortable. "Her eye got stuck to the wash rag and...SCHWOOP!" With this he threw open his fingers in dramatic fashion, upward-facing palm, body jerking forward in a vomiting-like motion.
SCHWOOP! Just like that.
I marveled at the lady's face, small and weathered by years and infirmities but none the weaker. She looked back, though I wondered how much she could see. And as the kindhearted and well-meaning, albeit awkward, surgeon stood over his papers and the priest/nephew stood over his aunt and the wanderer took off to schedule and file, the doctor finally called me into his office.
"Her nephew is here. Yes, it's gotten a lot worse. Ahuh. Just wanted to check--ahuh...yes..." The blue-scrubbed surgeon stood clear of the doorway with his cell phone, keeping his voice low.
I tried to focus on the six month's old copy of Good Housekeeping in my lap, awaiting the doctor's retrieval of me like a good patient, but...there was more talking, the hum from the room across the hallway evolving into a buzz around words like "cataract," "tumor," "radiation."
A man in clerical garb emerged from the room where all I could see were those stilled feet, and his smiling eyes persisted beneath his slick, baldy scalp.
The surgeon went on, now minimized to a disembodied voice, from within the room; "You're really doing great!" he said with strained enthusiasm, followed by nervous laughter aching to just cry already. "You've still got one ear and one eye...you're doing okay!" he said as he re-positioned the feet which turned out to belong to a lady with the whitest hair.
"I will be okay," said the lady on the gurney, "because I want to be." Her strength only fed my curiosity, and I took a quick glance up from an article about potted plant creations, just long enough to catch the very conspicuously-sized bandage engulfing her left eye.
"Her eye," said the priest man, leaning against the door frame, "was stuck, was attached to her eye-lid by a tumor," he went on to a lady who kind of looked like a receptionist and who seemed to pop up out of nowhere. "She was trying to wash up under there, you know, it was getting encrusted, you know, and so..." the receptionist/rogue wanderer nodded, concerned, as the maybe-nephew went on.
"And so...the wash rag...it got...stuck," the man got ever-so-slightly uncomfortable. "Her eye got stuck to the wash rag and...SCHWOOP!" With this he threw open his fingers in dramatic fashion, upward-facing palm, body jerking forward in a vomiting-like motion.
SCHWOOP! Just like that.
I marveled at the lady's face, small and weathered by years and infirmities but none the weaker. She looked back, though I wondered how much she could see. And as the kindhearted and well-meaning, albeit awkward, surgeon stood over his papers and the priest/nephew stood over his aunt and the wanderer took off to schedule and file, the doctor finally called me into his office.
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