Mind the Bleep

13 | Classic Avoidant Behaviour

Lo and behold, six a.m. had rolled around and Caliana had spent a grand total of three hours holding the call line to several hospitals within a fifty-mile radius of Little Oaks Hospital. But despite her most sumptuous efforts, every call was met with a loud and resounding no to finding a CT scanner to house their bariatric patient.

She'd drawn blood from clamping down hard on her inner cheek every single time Dawn had dashed in and out of the Doctor's mess euphoric over every successful procedure she'd performed under Preeti's supervision. And she'd nearly shed tears from the number of times she'd rolled her eyes as Isaac had entered and re-entered the Mess under the ruse of requiring more caffeine to get through the night.

He was on cup six; not that Caliana was counting.

Now, she nuzzled the plastic headset of the phone between her right ear and shoulder, her fingers tangled within the phone wire as her head lolled from side to side; lethargy infiltrating each pore.

Her refuge was disturbed by the repeating pre-recorded message buzzing through her eardrums every two to three minutes: "Your call is important to us. We are currently experiencing a large volume of calls and yours will be answered as soon as the next representative is available. All calls are recorded and monitored for quality improvement purposes. You are currently number twelve in the queue."

Caliana jolted upright, a small quantity of sleep-induced drool tumbling from the corner of her lip. "What the—? I was literally number eight less than ten minutes ago!" She traversed her forearm over her face until her mouth sat at the hollow of her elbow, permitting her to release a muffled bellow of pure infuriation. Running the increasingly likely risk of her losing her mind (and her place in the queue), she exhaled several sharp breaths attempting to stabilise her thoughts as she'd once learnt in a yoga class. "Stay calm, stay calm. Breathe in, one, two, three, breathe out, four, fix, six."

"Caliana?" Isaac's voice rang from behind her, evidently on his way in for coffee number seven of the night. "I may well regret asking this, but why are you counting down the phone? Is everything okay?"

"Oh," Caliana muttered, her mind sprinting for a plausible answer. "I was on hold, so I... I was doing my pelvic floor exercises while I was waiting for an answer."

Isaac tilted his head quizzically, along with a small raising of his right brow. "I wasn't aware there were any problems."

"There aren't any!" Caliana superseded, slightly disconcerted by the insinuation. "But you know how the saying goes...strong core equates to a strong mind and all that."

"Right. It seems I've not yet read the scientific study that correlates those two." Isaac answered, a touch of a smirk lingering beneath his words. "I take it there's been no success on the CT front, then?" He nodded his head toward the phone still situated in Caliana's hand. Perhaps, it was merely due to the sleep-deprived reversal of her circadian rhythm, but she found her gaze dropping to where his scrub top abruptly ended below his biceps; the cloth appearing suffocated by the muscle, providing more than a whisper of evidence of what laid beneath.

"I've tried at least eight different hospitals. This is impossible." She concluded in response. She noticed how he edged closer to the doorframe once again, his bleep the sole recipient of his attention as the ringing sound blared through the air. "Wait...if you're not too busy, could you...maybe hang around for a bit?" Caliana enquired. It wasn't that she was yearning for more interactions with Isaac, but rather that the nearly eight waking hours of minimal human contact was beginning to take its toll.

At least that's what she told herself. "It's just that I've been on hold for hours now, and if I have to listen to the Opus number one holding tune for another minute, I might sign a Do Not Attempt Resuscitation order in my own name."