FLATLINE| JK

nineteen

I've always had a complicated relationship with silence. On the bright side, silence is peaceful, serene. Silence allows for time to process, and for me to take a deep breath and collect myself when I feel scattered. Silence provides time for me to think, truly think. William James, a founding mind of psychology, likened thoughts to a stream of consciousness. Well, in the silence, my stream is calm and flowing, as opposed to choppy and rough. Thinking is just easy when it's quiet.

But that's also the downfall of silence. Thoughts. Thinking. When your thoughts are loud enough to fill the void in space, when they're screaming, arguing, crying in rapid fire succession. When the silence allows you to fully come to terms with the most gruesome thoughts, makes you face your demons head on. When it's silent, there's nothing to distract you from the imminent danger ahead of you.

"You okay, Bong Soonie?" Jimin speaks up, breaking the silence. I look up from where my eyes have been trained—the juncture of my hand with the patient's body, the place where his bloody flesh swallows my blue gloved hand up to my wrist. Jimin's face is a pleasant sight compared to the grotesque site of the wound, but he's clearly distressed. His eyes are glassy with tears, and he's forcing a smile onto his plump lips, as if to try to comfort me. Nervous energy radiates off of him almost tangibly.

It's sweet, but I'm rather far beyond comforting. But I can't tell Jimin that, as much as I want that to be my response to his question. Even if it is the same question he has asked five times in the past twenty minutes, in between bouts of silence, save for the sound of the ambu bag pumping the patient full of air and Jimin's shaky breathing. Twenty minutes ago, Chief Kim and the bomb squad director came in and told us that we are located directly above the pure oxygen tank used for all surgeries. We'd be idiots to stay directly above the thing that could add enough power to the explosive to blow the whole hospital to bits, so they concluded that we'd have to move.

Yes, move. As if things couldn't get any worse, we have to inch down the hall to another OR, with my hand inside a patient, one who also happens to have a bomb inside of him. I'm not even supposed to wiggle my fingers, and somehow, we're moving him. It just doesn't seem likely that the outcome of this will be good at all, and ever since the Chief dropped this bomb—

Oh, I should rephrase that. That's terrible timing.

Anyways, ever since the Chief told us we'd have to move, Jimin seems to have realized the magnitude of the situation. This is what has sparked his incessant questions of how I'm doing, and as nice the thought is, I can't tell Jimin the truth. I can't tell sweet, kind Jimin how terrified I am, because that would break his heart.

"I'm fine. I'm okay, promise." I lie, forcing a smile onto my own face. I hope it's convincing enough, because if he asks me if I'm okay one more time, I might cry. Jimin nods once more, as if to reassure himself, and returns his eyes to his task of squeezing the ambu bag. Silence envelops us once more.

What someone does with silence and when says a lot about a person. Jimin is one that speaks to fill the silence, I have come to discover. Once it has been silent for too long, he speaks again. His thoughts make him nervous, and he speaks for consolation. Taehyung uses silence to his advantage all the time, commands it—uses dramatic pauses, uses the quiet before answering a question to make the other person squirm. Yoongi is quiet most the time, save for any snide remarks. He either likes silence, or is too afraid of his thoughts to speak them. A girl I used to work with at the brothel, you could always tell whether she had a good session or not. Whether she had an okay customer or not. If she did, her dressing room would be quiet. She was okay with thinking. If she didn't, the room was full of blaring music. She needed to drown her thoughts out—

"Okay, everyone." The director announces as he re-enters the OR with the Chief. Seokjin's face is blank, but there's a tightness to the way he carries himself, a clench to his jaw that informs me he's just as terrified as we all are. His almond eyes fall on me.