A bit of drabble

I've been sitting at the computer for almost two hours now, wanting very badly to write but finding my creative brain strangely empty. I decided to read through some of my old pieces to see if my Muse might spark, but so far -- nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

I came across this piece I wrote for a fiction writing workshop I took with my brother ages ago. I don't even remember what the actual assignment was, nor do I remember the grade I received (though I do remember it wasn't a bad grade). So, in a fit of insanity, I decided to submit it for perusal. I am not a professional writer because I'm not very good, so please don't judge it from that standpoint. I write for my own enjoyment and -- hopefully -- the enjoyment of my friends. So here you go . . . .



Excrutiating Hour by Dawn
5 March 2003
Summary: A worried sister frets at her brother's bedside. Based on a true story.

I sat near the foot of the hospital bed, listening to the air gurgling in and out of my brother's lungs. He coughed, but it was hardly productive for the effort he put into it. A monotonous tick drew my eyes to the wall clock, its bold black numbers stark against its white face. Two-fifteen a.m. I glanced over at Nicole, folded in on herself in Jacob's wheelchair in the corner. Her breathing was slow, steady, and completely unlabored. She was asleep. I glanced back at Jacob, small and frail underneath the mountain of heated blankets the nurse had brought to keep him warm. His breathing was rapid, shallow, and sounded like he was hiding a locomotive in his chest. He was floating in delirium, one minute seemingly aware of his surroundings, the next mumbling incoherently.

As though sensing my thoughts, Jacob woke with a shake and his fevered eyes met mine. The irises were still his same milk chocolate brown, but red blood vessels stood out alarmingly in the scleras. His increased body temperature had caused more moisture to form, and his glassy eyes were now a perfect mirror that reflected the bars of the bed.

"Michelle." Jacob’s voice was deceptively normal, and if it weren't for the fact that he sounded as though he were drowning in his own sputum, I might have thought he was getting better. His eyes searched the room, but I knew he wasn't seeing the hospital. "Where's the cat, Michelle?"

"He's at home, honey," I replied quietly, but my heartbeat began to pound in my ears. The ice that had been resting around the base of my spine for three days began to creep slowly up into my own chest. I felt my breathing rate increase slightly, but I slowed it again with a little concentration. My fear wasn't going to help Jacob.

The nurse walked in on rubber soles, her footfalls barely making a sound. She carried a urinal in her right hand, and she smiled too cheerfully at my brother. "Do you need to use the bathroom, Jacob?" she asked, and her voice bounced off the walls and seemed to make the Kleenex poking up out of the box flutter.

"No," my brother replied simply and closed his eyes again.

The nurse checked the I.V. bag hanging on its hook, the sides flat against each other after having dumped their contents into Jacob's veins. She gazed down on the sleeping form in front of her, three distinct lines forming vertically between her russet brows. "He's had almost two liters of fluid in an hour," she muttered to herself. "He should have to urinate."

"He's dehydrated," I responded, and the nurse looked at me as the lines on her forehead deepened and her lips thinned. "That's what I've been trying to tell the doctor. That's what our roommate tried to tell the doctor last night when he had Jacob in here." My voice was nearly as flat and monotonous as the ticking of the clock.

Our voices roused Nicole, and she raised her head and rubbed at the creases her coat had made on her cheek while she’d dozed. "Are they admitting him?" she asked around her sleep-thickened tongue.

"I don't know," I responded, never taking my gaze from the nurse's. I raised a brow. "Are they?"

The nurse's eyes softened, and she tried to smile. "The doctor wants to get some x-rays."

My fists clenched, causing my nails to spear into my palms. The muscles of my jaw were knotted and didn't allow the bone to move when my voice came crawling out of my throat. "What about the x-rays from last night?"

"We can't see anything on them." The nurse's pitch had gone up a few notes and she was smiling slightly, and I realized she thought she was being cheerful.

I smiled too, but I had no intention of being cheerful. The nurse knew it, too. "Could it be because he's dehydrated?"

The nurse was saved a response by two radiography technicians and a portable x-ray machine. I hadn't even heard them coming, probably because my blood was roaring as loudly in my ears. One tech, her blond-streaked brown hair cut in a bob under her chin, opened her mouth to ask me to leave, but I was already spinning my own wheelchair away from them and into the hallway. Nicole followed slowly, yawning hugely. She leaned against the wall of small paper flowers, and I felt her eyes on my back as I rolled toward the exit door. I turned sharply and headed back toward her. She was fully awake now, and she said as I approached, "You're pissed."

"You're damn right I'm pissed." My voice hissed through my teeth, and another nurse looked up at me from behind a computer monitor. "Robert had Jake in here last night for four hours, and the moron doctor sent him home. He said it was viral and there was nothing they could do." I stopped pacing and jammed my furiously shaking hands in my armpits. I was suddenly very cold. "I knew I should have come last night. Robert hasn't dealt with this enough to know what to do. He didn't know to force the issue."

"He knew Jake was sick, but he trusted the doctor," Nicole said quietly.

"A doctor who has probably never dealt with a spinal muscular atrophy patient in his entire, short, pathetic career," I snarled, and a nearby intern winced at my comment. "It's pneumonia, I know it is. I had enough when I was younger to know what it sounds like."

"He's been on antibiotics for three days. That's a good thing."

I shook my head, my muscles going suddenly weak. My hands fell out of my armpits and into my lap, and my chin dropped to my chest. "No, it's different this time," I said, and I almost couldn't hear myself. Nicole knelt next to me, leaning in with a hand on my leg rest. I raised my eyes to hers and her image wavered in and out of focus. I realized I was about to cry, and I blinked the tears back into confinement. I inhaled deeply, and ironically enough at that moment the tech in the room with Jacob encouraged him to breathe deeper, c'mon you can do it. I squeezed my eyes closed, hearing the loud gurgle as my brother inhaled for the x-ray, then released his held breath with a weak cough.

I heard the other tech, this one male, mutter, "This is one sick little guy."

"He was in last night," Bobbed Hair responded. "He was bad then, but he's ten times worse tonight."

The door opened and the male tech pushed the machine through. He looked down at me and touched my shoulder lightly as he passed. "Good luck," he said.

I nodded in response, my voice caught in my throat. Nicole patted my leg and inclined her head toward the open door. When I reentered the room, the nurse was still there. Jacob was still awake, and his eyes looked accusingly at Nicole. "You missed the turn for St. Mary's," he stated quite clearly.

The nurse jumped a little, and her eyes went from Jacob to Nicole to me and back to Jacob, fast as a hummingbird on the hunt for nectar. She leaned over my brother's tiny body, still uncovered and starting to shiver, and asked, "Jacob, do you know where you are?"

My brother shook himself and looked at the nurse with a disgusted curl of his lip. "Yes," he responded, just as clearly. "I'm at the emergency room at St. Mary's.” He looked at me with his glassy eyes, seeming to question me as to why he had to deal with this imbecile.

The gravity of the situation finally collapsed onto the nurse’s head. "I'll get the doctor," she mumbled as she practically ran from the room.

Nicole pulled the blankets up over Jacob, and we heard him mutter something about being hot as he drifted back into the haze he'd been visiting off and on for three days. We settled down to wait again, she in my brother's wheelchair, me next to the foot of the bed. Within minutes, Nicole's breathing had slowed and deepened again in slumber. Whenever her body stopped moving, her fatigue won out. At least she was able to rest. At least she was able to block, even for a few minutes at a time, the sound of the train that was slowly destroying my brother's lungs.

I had a flash from years before of my sister Lee, three years old, with her face held closely to one-month-old Jacob's. She was rapidly sucking in air and blowing it out again, and Mom asked her what she was doing. "Breathing for brother," Lee had replied.

Breathing for brother. I watched Jacob's weak rib cage rise and fall ever so slightly and listened to the phlegm rolling over and over inside his lungs. I breathed deeply and held the air in my lungs, waiting until the gas exchange was nearly completed before exhaling again. I repeated the cycle, willing Jacob's respiration to match mine, willing the phlegm to move aside and allow the life-giving oxygen into his bloodstream, but it was no use. Jake's rhythm decided instead to match the ticking of the clock, and the ice finally succeeded in closing its fingers around my heart.