crown doctorate

normal time in an abnormal life

"It's a bit quiet here in the ER, don't ya think?" you mumbled, causing one of the other nurses on lunch break to stare at you disapprovingly.

"Shush! You're not allowed to say the Q-word on the premises!"

"Oh, come on," you whined. "I feel like cheating, getting paid, doing absolutely nothing in my office during these slow quiet days." At the utterance of the forbidden word, you won another glare. Besides how ironic was it, that you felt like cheating, even though you were the type to self-indulge in your laziness. You despised people who contradict yourself, and yet, here you are. "Anyways, it's not like any-"

beep beep beep

The din of the Code Blue alarm interrupted your speech.

Ugh. You hated being proven wrong, especially since you were normally right. But this time, your mood was barely soured – you were restless from inactivity and now, finally, there was some 'saving the day' duty to do; besides, you were expecting the alert. In fact, you were the one who shot the insulin into the crooked pig, but no one needs to know that.

You heard other doctors and nurses rushing to aid the patient in the second ward, then glanced at the clock.

12.59pm. The calendar next to it stated it was just a Tuesday, 4th of July 2006.

There was less than a minute left of your lunch break. The second hand pointed eastwards at exactly 90 degrees when you stood up.

As it slowly rotated towards the 30 second mark, you stuffed your phone and earphones into your pockets.

The arrow now pointed west when you started to walk towards the operating room.

You burst into the ward just as the clock rang to mark the hour, just as the team failed to resuscitate the patient, and switched off the defibrillator in defeat.

You were always so particular about time.

"Unfortunately, we've failed this time, doc." one of the nurses mumbled.

"Oh dear," you sighed, feigning your grief at the not-so-sudden passing. "I should have come faster, then at least there was a chance I could have helped."

"An extra pair of hands would have been extremely helpful, yes, but you can't blame yourself- you were on break after all."

Great going. No suspicion so far.

___________________________________

You stared at the ceiling for god knows how long. It was almost a daily habit. You were certain you definitely weren't an insomniac. Your body just had to randomly wake up at unnatural hours for no clear reason, and afterwards you could still fall asleep if you wanted to. But that was saved for extremely tiring days, and there were times you wanted to save time.

The dark side of the mornings were one of the best parts of the day. It was peaceful – you could do almost anything you wanted without the judgment of any surrounding people. You liked using this quiet time to cook up plans, anything of the sort, from proposing ways to improve systems in the hospital you worked at to how you could modify the circuitry in your toaster just so you could get that perfect burned crisp.

This time, you were pondering on how you could modify your recreation of the email app to allow it to receive and transmit calls that would not be detected by the Cabinet Intelligence and Research office or any other national security service if there were any mention of weapons or crime in your communications regarding your 'missions'. You were considering the fact that you'd have to make your own satellite to achieve this when the screen of your mobile phone beeped and vibrated to indicate a notification.