Coffee || A Jopper Story

1

An alarm sounded for a second, signaling that there were new arrivals at the hospital. These men were most likely in critical condition, meaning that all nurses and attending doctors who weren't dealing with a patient of a similar condition had to help. They all gathered by the back door of the hospital, mentally preparing themselves for the horrors to come.

Even though they'd all seen things like this before, three nurses looked sick. One of them even lost their lunch. The men were wailing and screaming in pain and terror, some of them still thinking they were on the battlefield. They shook and cried and covered themselves as much as they could. A few of the men were unconscious, they'd probably passed out from pain. There was a mess of injuries, ranging from superficial scratches to missing limbs. 

The nurses all took action as soon as the shock wore off, running to take the newly arrived to rooms for "critical care." They took the nearest open and clean rooms, which for some was practically on the other side of the hospital; other patients took most rooms. 

Joyce ran with the stretcher that was rolled next to her. It was a young man wailing in agony, his skin red and covered in ugly gashes pouring blood. Joyce talked to the soldier while she ran, trying not to focus on how terrible he looked or how loud he was screaming. She took him to the B-wing, which was empty but still ready for anything. It didn't seem like other nurses had the same idea, so the man's cries echoed throughout the silent halls. 

She quickly pulled him into a room and hooked him to a Holter Monitor. His heart rate was weak. She figured that he was in shock, simply because of the degree of his injuries. She began to assess his wounds. 

She'd never say it to his face, but he was lucky. She didn't know why his skin was red, but he'd been in or near an explosion. There were shell fragments embedded in his legs and a few pieces in his arms, but nothing fatal. This guy had probably jumped to cover but it was obvious he'd taken a hit. 

She called a doctor to take care of the metal because they'd most likely need to be surgically removed. She didn't know anything about that, but she didn't want to make it worse. In the meantime, she gave him some pain medication, and he stopped wailing. 

She studied the mud-caked, blood-covered soldier. His medium-short chestnut hair was clumped with dirt and grime, and his army uniform was torn. He turned and looked at her, and his eyes were startlingly blue. They studied each other for a moment, neither sure who the other was and at least one wanting to know more. But he began to drift off to sleep. She could have sworn that she'd seen him before, and she saw dog tags around his neck. She stepped closer and gently lifted them off of him. 

"Hopper, Jim, K. 9902348615. Christian." The tag read. She burst into tears, seeing that... this was what had become of her high school sweetheart. That he'd been thrown into a war he wasn't ready for (or old enough to join) and been spit back out a bloody, suffering mess. 

She wanted to say something, but then the doctor was there and whisked Hopper to another room where they would do the surgery. She wanted to run after him and hold his hand and tell him everything would be okay, but she couldn't move. Her feet were plastered to the floor as she trembled and sobbed.

It took her almost an hour to calm herself down. He still wasn't out of surgery, and she wondered what was taking the doctors so long. She couldn't see anything down the halls, so she went to her boss's office. The door was open, so she knocked on the frame. "Come in, Maldonado." Joyce entered. The office was neat and smelled like the rest of the hospital, sterile. "Jim just got out of surgery. He was in an Agent Orange warehouse that was bombed. He has terrible chemical burns, but he's in stable condition now. He isn't awake yet, but he should be up soon.