schism

Im annoyed, frustrated, a little hurt, and slightly confused.

When my dads accident happened I was in boston. I rushed down on an amtrack train as fast as I could. Mike, my soon-to-be brother-in-law picked me up at the train station and brought me to the hospital. My sister met me in the lobby. She wasn’t crying, I couldn’t tell if she looked like she had. She had a serious, authoritarian look about her. We went up the elevator. The hospital wing was typical, white linoleum floor, portable IV’s all over the place, empty gurneys, biohazard bags, closed doors with windows that had chicken wire sandwiched between the two panes, crying, silence, white, white, and sterile. She led me into the room when my dad’s life was being saved. He laid there, a blue tube coming out of his mouth, his left leg raised in a sling, blood was starting to seep through where his ankle should have been. Everything smelled so clean. His head was already in the halo, he had broken two vertebrae in his neck. Machines beeped, lines were etched on an LED screen, I heard people talking but I wasn’t listening. He still had dirt next to his eye, his fingers were covered in dried blood and dirt and iodine. Howie was already dead. I went and stood up by his shoulder, on his left side. He opened his eye just enough for a sliver of light to work its way in, enough to see me. He reached out for my hand and I held his. I now had blood and dirt and iodine on mine, his blood, his dirt, his iodine, my blood, my dirt, my iodine. He squeezed with everything he had left, which wasn’t much, but it was enough to tell me everything he needed to say.

Its hard to stay annoyed, frustrated, a little hurt when you have a memory as vivid as that. But its that memory that makes everything confusing.