Omar. And fuck you!”
After about two minutes of their disputing,
the cabbie drops the demand for a payment so long as Will agrees to
leave the vehicle. He’s not too far off from his desired location
so he takes the free ride as a win for himself.
“What a nice cabbie to give me a free ride,”
he says to himself and to the air around him, half sarcastically,
half sincerely. “There really aren’t enough nice people nowadays,
it’s really a shame.”
A sudden realization sees William reach into
his pocket for his wallet. He looks inside and sees that it is
pretty much empty. There was no way that he was going to be able to
pay for that cab ride, even if he had been willing to do so. To
Will, this means that seemingly all-knowing voice has yet to fail
him. As more and more time elapses, Will increasingly warms up to
the idea of the voice in his head. However, an important question
remains: what, or rather who, is that voice? And why has it been so
helpful to him?
Pushing the questions in his mind aside, Will
marches to where he feels he needs to be. When he arrives, he finds
himself unsure of how to proceed. He walks into the building and
directly towards the security guard. The tension is thick. Each
second is slow and laborious.
“Sir, where would I find the patients arriving
in ambulances?” He asks, very politely so as to not arouse
suspicion.
The security guard does not answer right away.
Instead, the guard stares at him blankly, raising the tension which
fell upon Will almost instantly as he walked into the Beth Israel
Hospital. After a few moments of the guard’s uncomfortably piercing
gaze, Will ponders inventing a story explaining why he’s looking
for the ambulatory care unit.
Wait.
“Sir,” the guard begins dryly as he slowly
raises his arm and points a finger at the sign right behind Will.
Will turns around to see what the man is pointing to. It’s a sign
which illustrates the directions to the different care units within
the hospital. Will thanks him, feeling a tab bit dumb that he did
not notice the sign himself.
He walks deeper into the hospital until he
reaches the E.R., then the trauma center, then the I.C.U., and
finally the ambulatory care unit. Both patients and hospital staff
members toss curious glances at him as he peers behind curtain
after curtain looking for the elderly woman from the
subway.
Unsurprisingly, no one so much as attempts to
stop Will from snooping around. The only resistance that he has met
thus far can hardly be called resistance at all. Say what you will,
but the apathy of health care workers can only be attributed to the
poor state of health care in the nation. There are simply too many
sick people in the world, and only a small percentage are
privileged enough to never have to deal with the indifference of an
underpaid nurse or a med-student-in-training in a public medical
facility. The fortunate ones can afford veteran doctors and nurses
who project the delusions of care, both medical and emotional, unto
them. The rest end up in place like Beth Israel, or even much
worse, Bellevue.
It isn’t until Will has peered behind more
than a dozen curtains that he finds his target, for lack of a
better word. The old lady, whose chart reads Beverly Caine, lays on
a bed in critical condition. There are tubes in her nose and a
complicated looking IV machine connected to the crook of her arm.
She appears sedated, as evident by the euphoric and blank look in
her eyes and the drool leaking from her mouth.
Slowly and carefully, Will approaches the lady
and seats himself on a foldable chair right beside her bed. He
reaches out, but draws his arm back due to timidity. Overcoming the
insecurity of his softer sentiments, Will gently takes her hand in
his.
“I’m sorry. I really tried to spare you the
pain of hot coffee. If I could take it all back…”
Will’s last sentence trails off as he is
reminded of the phrase which Heather said could turn time back for
him. As
After about two minutes of their disputing,
the cabbie drops the demand for a payment so long as Will agrees to
leave the vehicle. He’s not too far off from his desired location
so he takes the free ride as a win for himself.
“What a nice cabbie to give me a free ride,”
he says to himself and to the air around him, half sarcastically,
half sincerely. “There really aren’t enough nice people nowadays,
it’s really a shame.”
A sudden realization sees William reach into
his pocket for his wallet. He looks inside and sees that it is
pretty much empty. There was no way that he was going to be able to
pay for that cab ride, even if he had been willing to do so. To
Will, this means that seemingly all-knowing voice has yet to fail
him. As more and more time elapses, Will increasingly warms up to
the idea of the voice in his head. However, an important question
remains: what, or rather who, is that voice? And why has it been so
helpful to him?
Pushing the questions in his mind aside, Will
marches to where he feels he needs to be. When he arrives, he finds
himself unsure of how to proceed. He walks into the building and
directly towards the security guard. The tension is thick. Each
second is slow and laborious.
“Sir, where would I find the patients arriving
in ambulances?” He asks, very politely so as to not arouse
suspicion.
The security guard does not answer right away.
Instead, the guard stares at him blankly, raising the tension which
fell upon Will almost instantly as he walked into the Beth Israel
Hospital. After a few moments of the guard’s uncomfortably piercing
gaze, Will ponders inventing a story explaining why he’s looking
for the ambulatory care unit.
Wait.
“Sir,” the guard begins dryly as he slowly
raises his arm and points a finger at the sign right behind Will.
Will turns around to see what the man is pointing to. It’s a sign
which illustrates the directions to the different care units within
the hospital. Will thanks him, feeling a tab bit dumb that he did
not notice the sign himself.
He walks deeper into the hospital until he
reaches the E.R., then the trauma center, then the I.C.U., and
finally the ambulatory care unit. Both patients and hospital staff
members toss curious glances at him as he peers behind curtain
after curtain looking for the elderly woman from the
subway.
Unsurprisingly, no one so much as attempts to
stop Will from snooping around. The only resistance that he has met
thus far can hardly be called resistance at all. Say what you will,
but the apathy of health care workers can only be attributed to the
poor state of health care in the nation. There are simply too many
sick people in the world, and only a small percentage are
privileged enough to never have to deal with the indifference of an
underpaid nurse or a med-student-in-training in a public medical
facility. The fortunate ones can afford veteran doctors and nurses
who project the delusions of care, both medical and emotional, unto
them. The rest end up in place like Beth Israel, or even much
worse, Bellevue.
It isn’t until Will has peered behind more
than a dozen curtains that he finds his target, for lack of a
better word. The old lady, whose chart reads Beverly Caine, lays on
a bed in critical condition. There are tubes in her nose and a
complicated looking IV machine connected to the crook of her arm.
She appears sedated, as evident by the euphoric and blank look in
her eyes and the drool leaking from her mouth.
Slowly and carefully, Will approaches the lady
and seats himself on a foldable chair right beside her bed. He
reaches out, but draws his arm back due to timidity. Overcoming the
insecurity of his softer sentiments, Will gently takes her hand in
his.
“I’m sorry. I really tried to spare you the
pain of hot coffee. If I could take it all back…”
Will’s last sentence trails off as he is
reminded of the phrase which Heather said could turn time back for
him. As
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