Monster of Blue

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

     Fourteen years later...

      The machines light turns green as it lets out a soft beep when my card slides through—accepting that I am indeed Shae Gresham. With a weary sigh, I open the door leading into outpatient surgery. The white walls swallowing away the light created by the humming fluorescent lights. White tile floors squeak under my tennis shoes, the stench of cleaning chemicals and medicines mixing together into a toxic cologne—our hospital's signature smell.

      Letting out a low sigh, I berate myself for being so rash as a college freshman. Ready to rush through any door open to me in order to gain my final sense of independence away from my mom and step-dad. But, with my naivety and need to move out as quickly as possibly I had signed up for a nursing degree. Though I'm lucky that Chikelu Hospital was generous enough to help pay for school, I'm now entitled to work for them for at least four years. A tempting idea at the time that I had wasted no second in devouring that only left me with an associate's degree. Now, two years later, at the age of twenty, I'm already beginning to feel the stress add a decade to my looks. Sometimes outright hating my job.

      The doctors have bipolar mood swings that change at the drop of a dime. Friendly one moment then yelling at me and my co-worker for not moving fast enough the next—even when we've done more than thirty patients in four hours. However, they pale in comparison to the older nurses. There is a saying, "Nurses are known to eat their young". I can't even recall the number of fresh faces I've seen popped in here only to vanish a few weeks to a month later with the older nurses having satisfied looks on their faces.

      I'm too young for this stress.

      Luckily though, I don't have to work weekends or major holidays and I'm not an on-call nurse. Honestly, I feel sorry for those poor souls who get called at the break of dawn to rush to work. I briskly walk towards my nurse manager, Shirley Stocks. Her short rusty red hair making her easily noticed in the distance. At the age of forty-three, Shirley has been working here for over twenty years and her looks show it. Bony, crooked fingers tap in rhythm against her clipboard, the joints stiff with arthritis. Her sides and torso plump from three childbirths, her face drooping with fatigue. Pink lips press into a thin line when she spots me walking down the hall, a shaky sigh leaving her lips. 

      "We have sixty-seven patients today," she says,  "You have bed six, seven, and eight today. Hopefully we can be done by five." I nod and fake smiles grow on our faces. Not towards each other but for our patients, preparing ourselves for another long day.

      As Shirley waddles away to her patients, I stride over to my own. Opening the blue curtain I take patient seven's chart off the wall. My eyes scan over the papers, noting his gender, age, and need of a knee operation before noticing that no one had yet to take a blood sample from him—a simple procedure. As I close the curtains behind me, I turn to face my first patient of the day with a practiced perfect smile on my face.

      The hefty middle age man is bald with a few stray hairs sticking up here and there, the upper half of his body covered with the typical hospital dress that ties in the back; a blanket protecting his lower half from the hospital's chill.

      "Good morning!" I greet, making my voice sound chipper, "How are you, today?"

      The old man smiles at me before shooting into a full-length story about his day. I inwardly cringe, hoping that he'd do the regular 'fine, how are you', but do my best to talk along as I take his blood pressure. "Alright Mr. Cormick, do you have an addictions? Smoking? Drinking? Perhaps some—"