Fork and Knife

Her lonely footsteps seemed to echo throughout the whole hospital. She had developed a routine as she continued to pace back and forth fiddling with her hands and fixing her hair all became nervous habits. She would begin to bite her nails, thumb nail, index finger then back to thumb nail. Then she would do the same thing on the other hand. She would cross her arms and let out an exasperated sigh looking up at the clock before striding a couple more steps up and down the waiting room. She would lift her right hand to tuck a strand of blonde hair behind her ear before creasing out the non existent creases in her smooth white knee length business skirt before looking back up at the clock and sighing and impatiently marching up to the front desk.

“How much longer, Nurse?” She would ask, and every time it would be the same answer.

“Miss, if we have any news we will inform you immediately.”

It was about a quarter to twelve on a Sunday. Danhiel was still hooked up to her machines which had taken over her life for her. I was sitting in the waiting room with my old friend, the broken vending machine. Dime goes in, dime comes out, dime goes in, and dime comes up. It had been broken long before I had arrived. I spent most of my time out here now; it took a lot of courage for me to be with Danhiel when just seeing her like that would kill me. I picked my dime out of the return coin slot and put it back into the entry coin slot when after a few seconds it didn’t come back out. I looked at the machine for a while before standing up and trying to reach back up to fetch my dime.

My arm was wrenched about halfway up the machine until I heard a loud bang of the emergency doors come from the entrance. This was a normal thing being in a hospital and all but today I was especially curious as to what today’s emergency was. I made my way to the hall from the waiting room to see a stretcher being wheeled furiously down the corridor surrounded by a doctor, three paramedics and a women dressed purely in white with the exception of the blood stains on her hands and skirts. Her perfect blonde hair do had come undone and there were strands of hair falling over her eyes.

Out of all the people attached to that stretcher, the women in white seemed the most desperate for the man survive as though if he died her life went down with him.
The events that passed through these corridors around 2 hours ago had brought the woman and I together in a strange distant and silent relationship. Her striding back and forth across the waiting room waiting for news that would make or break her life, which had been exactly me about a week back. And then myself sitting her watching her waiting for my life to die out. There was no ‘will she, won’t she survive’ she was going to die and now it was just a matter of time.

Just watching this woman and the love that she shared for the dieing man in the next room was overwhelming. The one person I loved was surely dieing and where was I? Sitting next to a fucking vending machine instead of spending our last moments together. I was low and pathetic and I hated myself for that.

A doctor soon appeared and within a second she had fled to him like a moth to a light. They began to talk amongst each other in whispers I couldn’t make out and for a moment it looked as though all hope was lost until a huge grin broke out on her face and she threw her arms around the doctor and disappeared to find her love. The woman and the man had both been given a second change, why didn’t Danhiel get a second chance? Why did someone who I loved have to die? Why was I still sitting her questioning things I had no authority over?

I left the dime and coke machine which meant nothing to me and went to find the one and only person who did mean something and everything to me. Maybe luck was working in strange ways, as when I appeared at Danhiel’s door her eyes were open and her body lay limb starring at the ceiling. I smiled and slowly walked over to her bed sitting down beside her. It took her a while to actually realise I was there before she slowly turned to me “hey” I said softly reaching for her hand. She smiled at me and closing her eyes and opening them again “your still here” she said quietly. I laughed and stroked her face “of course I’m still here, I’m not going anywhere ever again.” I said as I stood up carefully moved in to lay with her as our fingers crossed and silence filled the room.