**UNEDITED**
Chapter Eight
1 Year Ago.
Christina Lynch was what you might call an average, ordinary woman. She woke up at 6:30am, got dressed for work, made her 6 year old daughter, Rachael’s packed lunch, woke Rachael up, got her ready for school and by 9:30am she had dropped her daughter off to school and was going to work as a nurse.
One morning Christina’s alarm clock failed to go off and instead of waking up at 6:30, she woke up at 7am. To Christina, every minute of her morning counted so missing the first thirty minutes would mean an extra busy morning. Thankfully she was used to working under pressure and multi-tasking, especially as she was a single mum so Christina managed to wake Rachael up, get her ready for school and give her lunch money instead of making a packed lunch. Even after missing out making the packed lunch and not having a quick shower she still missed her train to work, leaving her to wait 10 minutes for the next one.
The morning train rush is filled with people in suits or children hopping on and off trains, rushing to get to work. Most people hate the journey, especially when they are unable to find a seat on the train and have to resentfully stand up while attempting to read a book or newspaper but always on the lookout for an empty to seat to pounce on. Christina was the small percentage that didn’t feel this way. She loved the rush, feeling of getting onto a train and knowing her destination. She loved looking around her and seeing all sorts of different people and making up stories about them in her head. Travelling to and from work gave her a sense of stability. In those thirty minutes she is able to make her to-do list, rearrange her shifts at the hospital to fit into her daughter’s life and just sit (or stand) and read the newspaper. This was the time of day when no-one expected anything from her and she was just another person trying to get to work.
That morning her alarm failed to go off made things different. Christina was running late and the worst thing of all was that it was a Tuesday. On Tuesdays they had staff meetings and once a month their manager came to speak at the meetings. This happened to be the once a month Tuesday the manager was attending and Christina knew she couldn’t be late to it. This meant that for the first time in a long time she began to feel how nearly every person did while taking the train to work. Anger at the delays, frustration at not being fast enough to get a seat and annoyance at having to stand up whilst squashed up against a whole group of sweaty and equally frustrated people who have squeezed themselves in to a train carriage so everyone resembles a tin of sardines.
After thirty minutes of what could most likely be described as one of the worst journeys Christina had taken, she had managed to get out of the train carriage and was half walking and half jogging to her the exit. She was only 20 minutes late so if she ran she’d be able to sneak into the room to catch the end of the meeting. Hopefully no one would notice.
Finally the ticket barriers were in sight but there was a queue of people ‘touching’ their oysters out. However, Christina noticed the last two barriers were practically crowd less due to a puddle of water that happened due to a leak in the roof. Seeing her opportunity she jogged to the barriers but stopped to a careful walk so as not to slip, touched her oyster at the barriers and was on the way to the hospital.
Christina worked at the second floor of the hospital on the children’s ward and after signing in and showing her staff pass to the receptionist she rushed past and began to run up the stairs. What she didn’t know was that the stairs had just been mopped 5 minutes before she came and the cleaner had left to the supply closet because he had forgotten the ‘CAUTION WET FLOOR!’ sign. If Christina had just come 2 minutes later the she would have seen the sign, said a quick hello to the cleaner and carefully have walked on, just in time for the last 15 minutes of the staff meeting. However, she didn’t come 2 minutes later and as she ran up the stairs she slipped, falling all the way down, only to be found again, but this time unconscious, 2 minutes later by a shocked cleaner holding a bright yellow sign reading ‘CAUTION WET FLOOR!’
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In Essence
Dla nastolatków“People talk about out of body experiences. Some say they saw themselves being resuscitated and others say they saw a light which suddenly faded away as they came back alive. That didn’t happen to me. There was no bright light at the end of the tunn...
