Hospitocalypse - a psychiatrist's tale

A Short Story, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

Another call weekend had crept up on this Midwest psychiatrist much too close on the heels of the previous one. When I left the house in the morning, the wife and kids were still sleeping soundly. Despite my somber mood, it was a beautiful autumn morning with the sun just beginning to wash over the tops of the trees lining the road. A patch of fog near the river enveloped my car and transported me to the hospital before dissipating.

The hospital routine kicked off with the compiling and prioritizing of consults, calling the ER for updates, and checking Facebook for any comments that may have trickled in overnight. The doctor’s lounge was the first stop of the day. Nothing could be done until I had caffeine coursing through my veins. A metaphor popped into my head unbidden, "grease for my gray cells and the wind in my mainsails," which about summed it up. The fact it rhymed was just an added bonus.

The ID reader rejected my card three times before letting me in. With a click I entered the privileged area of physician gossip where the sacred Starbucks machine brewed its bean-mediated magic and kept the hospital running smoothly. Twenty minutes passed before I'd drained my cup and a hook shot deposited it into the corner trashcan. Looking around it seemed to me that the lounge was uncharacteristically empty, dead even. I wondered if Daylight Savings had yet again crept up on me and brought me in an hour early.

I continued my routine, riding up the yellow elevators to see patient number one. Reason for consult: altered mental status. "Should be fun," I thought sarcastically, my compassion at low ebb. She was in four-point restraints, pale, and with an intense stare that focused somewhere beyond me. I turned off the TV above my head as a violent scene flashed across the screen. When I turned around her face was less than a foot from my own as she leaned hard against the restraints, arms pulled tight behind her.

“BRAINS!” she yelled, appearing to fixate on my red bow tie.

I released the air caught up in my lungs with a slow exhalation through pursed lips and for a brief moment considered bouncing this one to the neurologist on call but could not come up with a plausible enough reason to do so. Behavioral changes secondary to a brain tumor? Not likely. I was stuck with this one. I backed up a step or two and attempted to reassert control of the interview by feigning curiosity and asked her what she meant by “brains”.

“Want brains,” she softly pleaded.

Moved by her apparent remorse, I said, “So, if I understand you correctly, you are not content with your current level of educational attainment?”

She lunged forward with an “AAARRRGGGHHH!” nearly pulling her restraints free.

"This one's turning into a Haldol special," I muttered and retreated quickly from the room to find her nurse for some stat orders.

Once again I found my immediate surroundings free of other people. Was everyone on a coffee break, for goodness' sake? I quickly made my way back toward the elevators. Approaching a side hallway, I first heard some footfalls and then saw some shadows moving at an odd pace. Turning the corner at a clip, I started to ask for the nurse from room 28. The words crashed into each other as they hit my larynx and fell back into my lungs unsaid.

Shuffling down the hallway were three nurses in scrubs, heads hanging, arms swinging, looking like they were overmedicated with Thorazine. They looked so very wrong. My instinct was to turn tail and run, but a kind of morbid curiosity had me rooted to the spot. The spell was broken when one of them clipped a crash cart and flopped to the floor like a drunken fish.

At that point the fight-or-flight response took over and spun me on my heels heading me back the way I’d come. Somewhere at the end of this particular hallway I knew there was a back stairwell that would take me down to the doctor’s lounge. I felt an urge to run but settled for a stiff speed walk, trying to maintain a professional demeanor, glancing at my watch as if I were late for a meeting.

Behind me one of the nurses panted, “Doctor... please... sign... orders... now.”

“Not now,” I said, my voice cracking. “I forgot my pen in my office.” It sounded like they were picking up the pace and I began cursing under my breath. In response the nurse stopped speaking and started shrieking. I reached the stairwell door and burst through. I took the stairs three at a time, crashing into the walls at each landing as I descended.

I realized I'd overshot my floor when I found myself staring at more shifty staff members coming up the stairs to meet me. “Doctor! Doctor!” they cried, mouths open like bizarre baby birds waiting for a worm.

“No time! No time!” I yelled back with a manic edge to my voice as I scrambled back up the stairs, flopped onto the landing, and lunged through the door in a scrambling speed crawl. On the other side of the door the hallway was empty and quiet. I pulled myself up and put my back to the door trying to catch my breath, heart pounding in my ears. I had the strange thought that this was what sinus tachycardia sounded like through a stethoscope. I could see the doctor’s lounge door about 50 feet away where the hall made a ninety degree turn. The impossibility of my situation had not yet hit me and my only thought was to find safety and solace in the lounge to regroup and figure out what was going on.

I started out at a slow jog but broke into a dead run as the door behind me burst open with the shoves and shouts of many voices. Ahead the lounge door seemed to be receding instead of getting closer like some kind of Alice-in-Wonderland trick. Worse yet, even more noises began to become audible from down the unseen turn in the hallway. Sooner than I expected I hit the hallway bend and slid with one foot out and one foot under  which brought me up standing when my lead foot hit the wall. "Safe!" I heard an umpire yell and thought I must be losing my ever-lovin' mind. Turning to the lounge door I detected motion down the unseen portion of the hallway in my peripheral vision. "Safe my ass", I thought.

With a sense of relief I reached up to pull my ID card off my lab coat only to realize in a moment of panic that it wasn't there. Looking back along the hall I'd just run down I spied it laying on the tiled floor halfway between me and the advancing group of moaning X-ray Techs. I looked back down the other hallway and confirmed that another group, this one a gaggle of gory candy stripers, was headed my way pushing a squeaky wheeled cart laden with cookies and a blood splattered coffee carafe . They weren't moving all that quickly but I wasn't exactly lithe and nimble with a clear head at the moment either. The thought of candy had me reaching into the inner pocket of my lab coat where I kept skittles for just such a low mood moment. A renewed sense of hope welled up as my fingers closed around an ID card that I thought had been lost weeks ago.

I swiped the card quickly only to have it emit a rejection beep. The sound that came forth from me was surprisingly similar to what had come from the throat of my patient upstairs. This was followed by a torrent of curse words and a flurry of swipes that were guaranteed to be ineffective.

"Get ahold of yourself, man" came a voice from the calmer part of my brain, the part that breeds denial as an overused coping skill. This was immediately rejected by the impulse to yell "Hey Mo!" and do a little jig while dragging my palms down my face in alternating fashion. And that's exactly what I did, finishing with two sharp barks to let the world know that Curly from the 3 Stooges was on the job and I'd officially lost my mind.

But survival instincts are not so easily undone. A slowing of time began to take hold of my perceptions. Arms reached out ominously from behind but at an inch a minute. The slicing motion of the card felt true as it found the card reader's groove. A clicking sound lasting seconds echoed in my brain as the weight of my body fell forward through the door, a strange sensation of falling that felt like flying or, at the very least, floating.

As I hit the floor time returned to its normal flow. I pushed the door shut with my foot from where I lay face down, hearing the clang of the carafe rebounding off of it and frustrated gurgling noises coming from the narrowing space. The electronic lock made a loud clicking noise, an audible prick deflating me like a balloon. I lay there for several seconds, eyes closed, getting my breath before rolling over onto my back. Reluctantly I forced myself to open my eyes and get them to focus. Floating above me, a pale head was looking down with wild hair and dark rimmed vacant eyes. I screamed like a little girl.

***

"Dude! What's your problem?" the zombie-like person yelled back at me. "Are you mental or something?"

My scream quickly died away and was replaced by panting as I clutched my chest. I forced myself to slow my breathing and focus on the person above me who upon closer inspection was obviously a teenager of the goth persuasion.

"No... no..." I said still trying to get control of my breathing. "I treat mental patients, but I am not myself mental as far as I can tell, though I am having some serious doubts at the present moment."

"Right, dude, whatever. What's up with everybody freaking out?"

I started to answer but then it hit me that he shouldn't be in the doctor's lounge. "How did you get in here?" I asked, propping myself up on my elbows and quickly scanning the room.

"I came in through the kitchen, dude."

His constant referring to me as "dude" was really starting to get on my nerves but I forced myself to ignore my growing irritation and think about what it was he was saying. I had always accessed the doctor's lounge through the electronically secured doorway, but of course the kitchen staff needed access to bring in the food and stock the drinks and snacks. "Show me how you got in", I said, and he took me to a back storage room where I found a swinging door with a small square window and a sign that read "Caution! Swings both ways." Great. This would definitely not do.

As if to emphasize the point the sound of a pan hitting the tiled kitchen floor echoed through the door and put me on high alert once again. My adrenal gland was getting a real work out and I immediately went into action dragging large boxes over to the door.

"Help me, dude!" I yelled. Yes, I'd actually called him "dude" not knowing his name. He snapped out of the time-out his overstressed brain had put him into and helped me drag and pile some heavy boxes over against the door. Through the small glass window I saw five or so shambling kitchen workers headed our way and what appeared to be the neurologist bringing up the rear. "Yeah, he's not gonna be much help to me today," I thought.

We braced ourselves against the boxes as the grizzly group reached the door and as they shoved in, we shoved out. The boxes began to slide towards us despite our best efforts. I was on the skinny side and the goth kid looked like he hadn't eaten in weeks. Lucky for us the door was in the corner of the room and after a four to five inch gap had widened in the door the boxes came to an abrupt halt and moved no further. One side of the boxes was flat against the wall and the front corner of the bottom box was wedged against a solid door stop. Whatever was wrong with these poor saps they didn't appear to be too bright and only seemed to have one direction, forward, which nicely solved the problem of our bi-directional door.

When we realized the door was not going to move any further we collapsed with our backs still against the boxes and simply sat there on the floor for an indeterminate amount of time. Feeling like it was the right thing to do I eventually reached across my body with my right hand and offered it to the kid, "Dr. Romero at your service, but you can call me George. Thanks for your help."

The kid slowly looked down at my offered hand still somewhat in shock and stammered, "Sh-shaun" as he took hold of it. I noticed the back of his four fingers had three crudely tattooed letters and a question mark which looked like "W-T-F-?" . It seemed strangely apropos to our situation and I felt myself warm to him a bit. With moans in the background and the occasional bump of the boxes against our backs I struck up a conversation.

"OK, Shaun. What brought you to the hospital today?" I asked. It seemed important to normalize the situation if that was even possible.

He rubbed the back of his neck, then started rubbing his eyes vigorously. "Dude... uh, George," he corrected himself, "I came to see my Mom. She got into a knock-down drag-out with her boyfriend and then ate a shitload of her Perc-30s. She was in the ICU with a tube down her throat for a day or two, and now she's strapped to her bed, probably psycho from coming down off that shit and all the Jack she drinks." I wanted to ask him if she was in room 28 by chance, but refrained from doing so.

"Are you the one who found her?" I asked.

"Dude," he said again. I just sighed and let it go. "It was totally fucked up. She was out of her mind and threatening herself with a big kitchen knife when I showed up, waving it around and screaming. She started trying to cut her hair with it, but lost her balance and fell and hit her head on the corner of the table. I was scared and didn't know what the fuck to do. She was knocked out and her head was bleeding. Her donkey-balls boyfriend took off and left me to deal with her."

He took in a quick deep breath at this point and looked like he might be close to tears. To keep him from shutting down, I offered, "Dude, that sucks."

"Yeah, sucks donkey balls that sorry-ass son of a bitch. My Dad was a crackhead and left us when I was five. Mom's all I have 'cept for my druggin' buddies, but they bug out when the money runs out so my Mom's pretty much it. I couldn't leave her like that, so I called 911 and held a towel to her head till the ambulance got there."

"I'm sorry you had to go through something like that, Shaun." It boggled my mind to think our current ghastly situation was something not unlike what he probably experienced on a fairly regular basis. He was used to hobnobbing with the walking dead (if that's what was going on here in the hospital, I hadn't quite figured that out yet), damaged people with empty lives looking to drugs and drama, with a sprinkling of sporadic violence, to convince themselves they still existed. The one person he felt most connected to in this world was likely two floors above us strapped to a bed in her own private hell.

We sat there for a while, not saying anything. When I looked over at him, his face was streaked with mascara. Images of Alice Cooper bubbled up from some odd corner of my mind. Almost involuntarily (maybe it was the stress?) I belted out, "School's out FOR-EHHH-VA!"

Shaun jumped a bit and leaned away from me, wiping his eyes with his shirt. "Dude, you're messed up," he said, trying to stifle a grin. "And you're no Alice Cooper with that lame-ass bow tie."

At this, the unbearable tension of our predicament seemed to crumble away with some fitful snorts and then out and out laughter. It started to wane until some howling noises coming through the crack in the door set us off again. We both ended up in the fetal position on the floor clutching our guts and gasping for air. I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye and once again wondered if I was cracking up.

***

After a couple of false starts, we eventually regained our composure and sat back up against the boxes, shoulder to shoulder in silence once again. The laughing episode had broken down some invisible barrier between us and I felt myself to be more calm and thinking more clearly. I even imagined having a son like Shaun some day, ideally without makeup, tattoos, and body piercings, but even that wouldn't be a deal-breaker. My introspection came to an end as I began wondering what was going on inside Shaun's head and how we might work together to get out of our predicament. When he spoke again, it was clear he'd been thinking of candy.

"Dude, I think I saw some malted milk balls in that other room. Do you think we could snag some?" Since the barricade didn't seem to be going anywhere, we got up and headed back there.

While he raided the candy bins, I switched on the TV to see if it could make any sense out of what was going on. Sure enough, there was a reporter standing in front of a ribbon of yellow police tape with the hospital behind him in the distance and emergency vehicle lights flashing in alarm. It quickly became clear that they knew even less about what was happening than I did. Somewhere amid the newspeak I heard "possible virus" and "sealed." It was the "sealed" part that actually gave me pause. The lounge was morphing into a tomb around us.

Shaun came up behind me as I switched off the TV. I turned to find him with chocolate at the edges of his mouth and a wearing a goofy grin. "Wha'd he say?"

I wasn't sure if I should tell him about the hospital being sealed or not. It was hard to get a read on this kid as to whether or not he was stable or on the verge of flipping out. A lot had happened in a short amount of time and denial could be a good thing if it helped keep a lid on the hysteria. "He said there might be a virus going around that's got people acting weird."

He accepted my answer without comment. He was definitely in denial. I wasn't too concerned that the lounge could be breached but I didn't know how long we could survive on candy and soda if this "virus" spread outside the hospital and we were stuck here for an extended period of time. I checked the lounge entrance and put my ear to the door. There was an odd thumping noise along with muffled moaning and muttering sounds. I returned to the back entrance and found the boxes still firmly wedged in place, and zombies, for lack of a better word, loitering in the kitchen. When they saw me they quickly re-congregated at the door and commenced pushing. The closest one got his arm through the door but could get no further.

Eventually fear turned into boredom.

Shaun came up with a way to pass the time by using a plastic spoon to try and flip raisins into the mouth of whichever zombie was trying to get his head through the gap in the door. We sat indian style about five feet away, each with a cup full of raisins. Our relative proximity and being hit by raisins would rile the thing up and cause it to open its mouth menacingly. My strategy involved alternating shots, one in the eye to get it irritated and opening its mouth wider with a quick follow-up shot into the gaping hole. In retrospect it was probably an unwise course of action in regards to wasting food but neither of us liked raisins much and it allowed us to vent our frustrations at the situation we found ourselves in.

***

At least an hour had passed since I'd begun my call day and my adrenalin was beginning to peter out leaving me feeling empty and exhausted. If ever I'd needed a second morning cup of coffee in my life it was now. Shaun appeared to be napping on a sofa with eyes closed and mouth hanging open, presumably content that he'd won the raisin flipping contest. Upon closer inspection he had small microphone buds in his ears and had escaped into his electronic soundscape where others could not follow. I got a shiver down my spine realizing for all intents and purposes there was little to distinguish him from the unfortunate things on the other side of the door simply by looking at him. I moved over to the cabinets and opened the one closest to the Starbucks machine.

Just seeing the cups with their green star-crowned mermaid brought on a surge of energy like a junkie's euphoria in handling the crack pipe, even before it is inhaled. I grabbed one and slipped a cardboard sleeve over it before placing it under the dispenser. I'd gotten used to selecting the half-caf half-decaf blend option in an attempt to decrease my caffeine intake but today there would be no half measures. The situation called for maximum brain power and heightened senses to tackle the potential challenges ahead. After only a sip or two I felt my mood picking up even more and I made my way back to the storage room to rummage around and see what I could find to fight zombies.

Rummaging around I discovered a metal plate behind a cart that turned out to be the door to an archaic dumbwaiter that hadn't likely been used in decades. At least now there was a potential alternate exit from the doctor's lounge though it was obvious I wouldn't be able to fit in it. Maybe Shaun could if he had to, excepting any claustrophobic tendencies. I glanced over to the blocked door and was taken aback to find that the current zombie grasping at air in the gap was the neurologist, Dr. King. The revulsion I felt did not linger long, turning instead into pity, and then finally into curiosity. I approached him carefully and stood just out of his reach.

His eyes were gray and clouded over like someone with severe cataracts. He moaned and swiped at my white coat which I could have almost imagined was an attempt to pat me on the arm in different circumstances. At that particular moment I knew his intention was not so innocent and cordial, though we had had our diagnostic disagreements in the past.

"Stephen, you've seen better days," I said.

He withdrew his arm from the gap so that only his face was sticking through, mouth agape. On a whim I reached over and poured some of my coffee into it, thinking it couldn't hurt and might even help. God knows caffeine had resurrected me on many an occasion.

He sputtered in anger and shoved his face further through the gap. The hot liquid in his mouth pooled for a moment and then was gone down the dark hole at the back of his throat. It seemed less like a swallow than a function of gravity. With this something very strange began to happen. He stopped moaning and stood perfectly still. I stepped closer, forgetting I was then in arm's reach. Something appeared to be happening to his eyes. I leaned in even further, fascinated at what I was seeing. The uniform dead gray color was beginning to warm and rotate like the froth on a well made cappuccino. Brown and white swirls coalesced into a round brown iris surrounded by white sclera. He then jerked upright, away from the door, and inhaled deeply as if preparing for a deep water free dive.

Exhaling violently, he found his voice, "What the Sam Hill is going on here?!" he bellowed. He'd been through some inexplicably gruesome experience beyond all human imagining but still retained his ability to forgo swearing. His holier-than-thou reputation had remained intact in a room full of loitering zombies. Unbelievable. The old irritation at him started to creep back in before I forcibly pushed it back down. His yelling had caught the attention of his former undead comrades and they looked none too happy about him switching sides.

"Stephen!" I yelled. "Get your ass over here quick!" My head was now the one in the gap and my arm wildly beckoned him my way. He looked at the approaching zombies and then at me with a bewildered expression and wisely chose to move in my direction. By kicking the door outward the gap widened another inch or two and he lodged himself into the opening. He was unable to get more than half way through due to his substantial paunch. I grabbed his arm and put my foot on the wall for leverage. I gave a terrific tug but to no avail. The zombies were progressing our way slowly but surely as if bound by an unspoken rule of the walking dead, "Thou must walk but never run."

Stephen whipped his head back my direction, "What's going on, George?" he said, panicked.

"Shut up and suck it in!" I grunted, still pulling as hard as I could.

Stephen looked back around to find himself almost face to face with one of those things he'd just been. "Shit!"

Hearing him actually swear put a grin on my face and a surge of energy suffused my tired limbs. With an almost audible popping sound the rest of him came through the door. He landed squarely on top of me sending the air out of my lungs. The door once again found its place against the boxes narrowing the gap while a zombie beat the air where the neurologist had been.

Stephen rolled clumsily off of me, staggered to his feet, and began brushing off his white lab coat. "George, is this a nightmare? That's gotta be it. I'm having a nightmare," he tried to convince himself. "I would never use such foul language in real life. I'll wake up in my own bed soon and we'll laugh about it at work today, but I'll leave out the cussing part." I was still trying to get my breath back and making odd noises as a consequence. "Are you a zombie now, George? Should I kill you or something?" He began to look around him for a weapon and snatched up a mop handle with a dangerous looking metal head on it that had been leaning against the wall. It was obvious he was still somewhat shy of being back to his normal self.

My strained attempts at speaking and waving my arm in front of me to ward him off wasn't exactly clarifying the situation. He swept the mop handle up above his head with both hands and spread his feet apart to firmly anchor his death blow. As the mop dropped I rolled out of the way but not far enough as my shoulder hit the boxes and stopped me short. The mop head grazed my back and my lungs found the air they needed to let out a scream of pain. He lifted the mop handle once more above his head. I only had time to look back at him knowing this was not going to end well. Oh me of little faith. At that moment the form of Shaun, like a gaunt arrow, flew over me and toppled the stout neurologist backwards onto his back. Shaun straddled him and his hands found Stephen's neck and clinched down like a set of boney vice grips. Now Stephen was once again the one making all of the gurgling noises.

"Shaun, stop!" I yelled with lungs now mercifully full of air.

"Dude, he was trying to clobber you!"

"I know, I know, it was a mistake. He thought I was a zombie. Let him go!"

Shaun looked at me, then at Stephen, then back at me. "Fine!" he said in disgust and released his grip. He got off the beleaguered neurologist and gave a tug at the back of his black jeans which had ridden down and then swiped his hand across his upper lip clearing some snot before wiping it on his shirt.

***

I instructed everyone to sit in a circle. We needed to get Stephen up to speed. We explained to the best of our understanding what we thought was going on. My version included some technical neurological jargon that I knew he would appreciate. Shaun's version was more informed by pop culture references with several curse words mixed in which caused the neurologist no small amount of discomfort . Regardless of the perspective, the bottom line was we were in a shitload of trouble unless we could come up with some kind of plan. My little experiment with the coffee had been one of those great serendipitous moments that has been responsible for so many major scientific discoveries of the modern age. The CEO and founder of Starbucks could also probably take some credit but he was filthy rich and could afford to be left out of the equation.

Stephen pointed out we needed a delivery system if the coffee idea was going to fly. Shaun agreed and probably had the most experience with large volume water guns which had become all the rage well after we old fogies had reached adulthood, tragically so. My brilliant idea came in the form of a thought bubble which transformed into an ambu bag in my mind's eye. An ambu bag is a large flexible plastic bubble with a face mask on one end and a place to connect a tube on the other to help people breathe in emergencies. This is accomplished by the presence of a one-way valve and squeezing the bubble to force air flow. More brainstorming finished out the idea with more tubing, some surgical tape, a cylindrical metal trash can, and a square bottomed trolley used to move cafeteria trays. The only problem with our improbable Suessian contraption was we had no ambu bag, tubing, or surgical tape.

The curse words rose swiftly to my tongue but then transformed when I saw how peaked and downtrodden the neurologist looked. What came out instead was, "Dadgummit! What the flip are we going to do now?" The more I thought about it the dumber our idea seemed. "Dumb, dumb, dumb", I repeated quietly to myself which ended up triggering the memory of discovering the dumbwaiter. Of course! Some hope flooded back in to fill the empty cistern of this B-movie madness.

"Stephen, Shaun, there's a dumbwaiter behind that cart", I pointed over to where I'd discovered it earlier. "It may very well go up to some of the supply rooms where we can find the missing pieces for our coffee delivery system. They both perked up at this sudden revelation and we all crawled over on hands and knees to have a look. There was a rectangular metal door measuring about two foot high and a foot and a half wide with a small glass window. We moved the cart and some boxes out of the way to access it more easily. With a few kicks and using the mop head as a wedge we managed to get it open. The space inside went back about 2 feet. We found some old dusty rags in it and used them to wipe out the mouse droppings. It was evident from the size that neither I nor Stephen would be able to fit into it. An unspoken word passed between us and we turned our attention to Shaun at the same time.

Shaun looked at me, then at Stephen. We both stared back at him waiting for it to sink in. The sinking was a little slow in coming, but sink it did. "No fuckin' way, dude! I ain't getting in no midget elevator!" He scrambled back towards the door but then an inhuman wail came from the kitchen and he just as quickly scrambled back to us. It was heartbreaking to watch, his head in his hands, rocking back and forth, scared. "My dad used to lock me in the closet sometimes when he was high or drunk. If I yelled or screamed, he'd open the door and kick me to shut me up. I'm sorry, but I can't get in that thing."

I pulled him over and let the top of his head lean into my chest while I put my hands on his shoulders and then on his back allowing him to rock. "I'm sure you were a very brave kid Shaun, even at five years old." He didn't say anything but his rocking motion slowed and eventually stopped. Standing up straight he took a deep breath and ran his hands through his shock of hair.

"I'll do it for mom," he finally said in a tense voice. He looked even paler than his normal pale self. With his permission I walked him through a hypnotic technique to help calm himself and focus. In this state, with repetition and reassurances, we backed him into the dumbwaiter and explained in detail what it was we were looking for. I made sure the ratchet mechanism was fully engaged and Stephen got ahold of the ropes of the pulley system. Together we heave ho'ed and up Shaun went.

Two floors up he spied shelves full of medical supplies through the little window and yelled down for us to stop. The dumbwaiter door on that floor actually opened without much effort and we heard him flop into the room. Lucky for us the supply room door had an external keypad lock to discourage unauthorized access and was therefore zombie-proof. After several minutes of foraging and yelling back down the chute he had secured the needed items and gotten them into the dumbwaiter. I had the wherewithal to mark the rope with my ink pen to know where the dumbwaiter was sitting before lowering it down with the items in order to return it quickly to Shaun if something emergent came up.

Of all the impractical points of our plan it seemed to me that getting Shaun into that dumbwaiter was the most impractical of all. I could have never done it and I had had a relatively secure childhood with no major bumps, though there was that time my Mom made me crawl under the bathroom stall door at the mall to let her in because she did not have a dime to put in the pay-to-poop door lock, but I digress. We got Shaun back down without incident, though he promptly vomited as soon as he was securely back in the room. I'd judged him unfairly with his "dude" and outlandish appearance but now I was in awe of this teenage boy.

***

We gave him some time to recover and then began building our contraption in earnest. My job was to set up the trashcan trolley while Stephen and Shaun worked on the coffee pumping mechanism. I wheeled the trolley into the doctor's lounge and cleared an area to work in. I felt like a vandal as I dumped the trash onto the floor and set the trashcan on the trolley with the heavy duty trash bag still in it. Next I taped the trashcan securely to the trolley handles and then wheeled it in front of the Starbucks machine. After breaking into a few locked cabinets I found the the sealed bags of coffee beans, chose the blonde roast, and filled the bins on top of the machine. I then placed my hands on either side of the machine and worked it forward until the dispensing head had cleared the counter top. I jumped up on the counter and used my heel to break off the catch tray so the coffee could flow directly into the trashcan below.

Shaun peeked in the room to see if I was all right. "I'm fine, I'm fine," I waved him off. "Just had to modify the machine a bit." Truth be told I was having some fun with this, tapping into some of my own repressed adolescent rage.

By the time I'd brewed enough grandes to fill three quarters of the trashcan my apocalyptic compadres had a working prototype of the pump ready to test. A long stretch of bendable plastic tubing was dropped down into the coffee filled trashcan. Shaun held the ambu bag it was connected to. Where the face mask had been the same kind of tubing had been attached instead and secured with tape. This tubing was about three feet long and ended inside of a large syringe also secured by tape. Shaun pumped the ambu bag and the brown liquid could be seen snaking up the tube until reaching the narrowed syringe head and arching across the room in a strong thin stream. Wunderbar!

We wheeled it to the back door and yelled at the five kitchen-worker-cum-zombies, and they immediately obliged us by heading for the door. Shaun expertly hit them one by one in the mouth, bringing their advance to a standstill. Much like the neurologist, they experienced a disorienting transformation that required a little time to play itself out before we could reorient them and explain what had happened to them. Moving the boxes and stepping out into the kitchen was an exhilarating feeling. Free at last!

The plan now was to emancipate the hospital as quickly and safely as possible. It was the "safe" part that had us concerned. We'd hit the kitchen workers from the security of our inaccessible position, but what would happen in the broad hallways of a medical ward? It was Stephen who came through for us. He considered himself an amateur military historian, and this was his time to shine. He was full of knowledge gleaned from National Geographic, Jane's Defense Weekly, and Clausewitz's On War. It was Philip of Macedon's phalanx formation that inspired our strategy. Stephen explained the idea as we gathered and distributed mop handles. He and one of our new number took up positions in front, two each on either side and two in the back, with Shaun and me in the middle manning the coffee shooter. Stephen also took charge of the route we would take, starting on the top floor and working our way down.

We met no resistance getting to the elevator. As we ascended in that cramped space I got a glimpse of what soldiers must feel like on the eve of battle, the only difference being I was manning a mobile trashcan full of coffee while listening to Manfred Mann singing "Blinded by the Light" over the elevator speakers. Yes Manfred, I was revved up like a deuce and ready to get this over with. A dinging noise indicated we'd reached our floor and I took a deep breath as the doors separated.

Loitering in the foyer in front of us were several zombies looking like their AA meeting had been interrupted by a bunch of drunken college students. The two mop handles in front were thrust forward as we moved out of the elevator. Shaun began shooting even before we'd all gotten out. It is a memory that is forever burned into my hippocampus. We bristled like an enraged porcupine rolling into that group, mop handles thrusting in all directions, Shaun spinning and firing like he was in the most kickass video game that ever was.

***

The mopping up took about two hours and somehow we ended our hospital-wide assault in front of room 28. Shaun and I paused, silent for a moment. I finally broke the silence, "Is this your mom's room?"

"Yeah, this is it."

"OK, let's go then."

He led the way. She was still in restraints but sleeping, eyes moving fitfully under closed eyelids. Shaun found a cup and, with a shaking hand, scooped up some coffee from the bottom of the trashcan. "Mom, it's me Shaun," he whispered. She moaned a little but did not open her eyes. "Mom, wake up," he said, a little louder. "It's me, Shaun." She opened her eyes and looked wildly around the room. Before she could react further, he poured the coffee into her mouth.

Nothing happened.

There was no transformation. Shaun stared as his mother writhed and let out a stream of obscenities. Tears flowed down his cheeks. I pulled him into a hug. He resisted at first but then went limp.

"It's OK, Shaun," I assured him. "She's just in withdrawal, and we can treat that. She's gonna be OK." I felt some strength come back into his arms as he returned my hug and we stood quietly holding each other.

It had been one hell of a day.


.

Fearless Communing

This past year has been an interesting one for us in regards to Anya (not) taking Communion at church. She has had an abiding fear or, at the very least, a mistrust of adult males (her Grandpa and I excepted). What this has meant in approaching the chalice every Sunday is a turning away from the priest and burying her face in Jennifer’s shoulder as Fr. Matthew says, “The Handmaid of God, Anya…” My thoughts finishing the pronouncement with “…will not be taking Communion yet again this week.”

But today was different. We’ve noticed this past week or two that she has been more open and engaging with adult males when we are out and about. At Noodles & Co she interacted in a cutesy way with the male employee who was trying to get her to laugh and last weekend she let her Uncle carry her around. The look on her face was a bashful smile that said, “Oh isn’t this so very strange, I think I like it.” So, the stage was set.

During the homily Anya’s godmother was holding her and told her that she’d give her a piece of bread (antidoron) if she took Communion. When it came time to line up she stood on her own next to her brother, crossed her arms over her chest as instructed, and waited for the priest to bring out the chalice. She seemed perfectly at ease and when Jennifer lifted her up she looked straight at the priest, opened her mouth, and let him place the Eucharist on her tongue with the spoon.

Fr. Matthew, Jennifer, and I all grinned simultaneously at this little triumph as we shuffled back to our place to await the bread from her godmother.

Night Vigil

My Guardian Angel, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

Tonight my son and I went through our typical bedtime routine of brushing teeth, peeing, and having him put on a pull up before plopping into bed. He made it into his room before me and as I entered and saw him already under the covers it hit me that we hadn't prayed together in his icon corner for the past several nights.  Often it seems easier to just skip that part when we are tired.

I determined we would resume this very important part of our routine and I went into my bedroom and found a lighter. When I entered his room again I switched his light off and proceeded to the icon corner where I lit his candle. "Elias, let's get up and pray," I said in the flickering darkness.

"No Daddy, I'm too tired."

Some nights I easily give in to this unassailable logic and simply crawl into bed beside him and drop off to sleep, but tonight I thought it was important to push back a little. What came to mind was Jesus bringing his closest disciples with him to the garden at night to pray. His crucifixion was at hand and the loneliness of what he must do in his humanity must have been crushing.

"Elias, do you remember when Jesus went into the garden at night and took Peter, James and John with him to pray?" Elias was quiet under the covers. "Do you remember what they did instead of praying with him?"

In the darkness of the room lit by a single candle I heard his little voice say, "They fell asleep."

Without another word he got up and joined me for prayers and when we finished he laid back down and quickly fell asleep.

***

Hot June Afternoon

Untitled, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

Mowing my yard
on a hot June afternoon
listening to Neil Young.
Belting out my
best tortured falsetto
over the drone
of the electric motor.
Discovering a dip
under the fence
where a rabbit
has gained access
to my backyard,
Peter Rabbit
munching on my
butterfly bushes.
Searching for
a heart of gold
and I'm getting old.

Muir Woods

We escaped the city, rickety split,
in a beat up hoopty-of-a-car
trundling across the Golden Gate Bridge,
winding through the hills of Marin County.
At the crest of a hill we caught a peek of
the Pacific Ocean winking in the fading light.

A descent was made into the hidden valley
of Muir Woods where Redwoods grow
to impossible heights for improbable years.
Abandoning our car for the foot trails,
we wound through the trees like ant people,
the air fresh as the first day of creation.

The serenity cleared and cleaned our
city-corrupted organs of perception,
the sound of our footfalls like Adam
walking with God in the cool of the day,
a soft breeze moving across the ear
whispering a wordless wisdom.


***

What Rose Mary Sees

What MaryAnn Sees, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

___________

What does Rose Mary see when she is looking up with eyes closed, palms together in front of her face, like a child in prayer? Do the heavens open up as she rocks back and forth murmuring to herself during the Liturgy or is she escaping some private hell conjured by mental illness? The third heaven of St. Paul or the third hell of Dante, literally or in metaphor?

She is a mystery.

Her stories have elements of the impossible or, at the very least, the highly improbable. When she turns her head away she forgets you are there, seeming to attend to other matters. No matter how many times you introduce yourself she looks at you as if it is a first meeting, that you are a new visitor to her church. She teaches humility like few can.

__________

Matins of Great & Holy Friday

Great & Holy Friday, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

An ancient liturgical hymn sung at the Matins service of Great & Holy Friday, here sung by Archbishop Job of Blessed Memory.

**********

Today is suspended on a tree He who suspended the earth upon the waters.
The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face.
The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the Cross with nails.
The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a spear.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
Show us also Thy glorious resurrection.

**********

Nighttime Conversations

Nighttime Conversations, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

___________________

murmuring wind
airs things
we cannot
or will not
share
constrained
by pride
locked out
of love
a prisoner
of our self
a stranger
to light
a withering
of life
___________________

Lenin Lurking

The figure drags deep on a Marlboro Red and sends a cloud of smoke out into the light from within the shadow where he stands.  A bright dusk illuminates the outskirts of Moscow as evening approaches.  It is another listless night for the man whose time has come and gone, left to wander the city, ignoring those around him and being ignored in return.  A cold breeze finds its way down the neck of his tattered London Fog overcoat triggering a shiver and a curse.  He flips his cigarette disdainfully, watching it bounce on the cracked pavement with a shower of sparks before crushing it under the heel of his Doc Martens.

Shadows suit him as does the cover of night, but in Moscow this time of year the light seems interminable and depresses him.  With no one around to observe his movements he leaves the shadow, like Cain cursed to roam the earth, and ventures northeastward closer to the heart of the city.  Thoughts of his former resting place come unbidden and unwelcome.  He no longer sleeps on Red Square upborne by veneration in a God-free dream state.  It is only an artificial semblance of the man he used to be.  Instead he has become a shade, a feeling of unease in those who pass too closely. 

A Chef Boyardee can rolls into his path and he kicks it with disgust, "Capitalist trash!"  The can bounces off a large wooden gate with a clang scaring off some loitering cats.  The balding scowl-faced man looks left, then right, high stone walls running off in either direction.  His curiosity piqued, he is surprised to find the gate moving inward to his touch.  A surge of disappointment and then a good deal of anger wells up as he realizes he has entered a walled monastery in the midst of the city.  Quickly turning to leave, the gate no longer responds to a push or a pull.  Howling does him no good.  He is trapped in this Soviet-forsaken place. 

How had things come to this?  Churches reopening everywhere!  Monasteries flourishing!  Lost in grief, he is startled to feel the weight of a hand on his back.  "Vladimir, why do you kick against the goads?"  A thickly bearded man with gentle eyes stands at his side. 

Conflicting emotions rack him as he recognizes his old nemesis, expecting gloating but feeling a warm flow instead.  His shoulders sag, head down as he rubs his hairless crown in despair.  "You have won, Vasily Ivanovich."

The Patriarch pulls the weeping man to his chest.  "We have all won, Vladimir Ilyich.  Christ is risen!"

***

The next morning church bells peal calling people to prayer at the main cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery.  A little girl with her parents pass the sleeping form of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin on a bench, laid out as if in state.  The father senses the uncanny resemblance and blanches a bit.  "Can I give him a flower, Papa?" the little girl asks, already picking a wild one by the path.

"Yes, but let him sleep, Little One.  Let him sleep."

___________________________

* Information regarding St. Tikhon of Moscow

___________________________

Meeting St. Innocent

***

His earthly remains,

sanctified in life

by the indwelling 

of the life-giving Spirit,

lie in a church

onion-domed blue and gold

surrounded by the sights 

sounds and smells

of a heavenly host

funneled through 

earthly channels.

I was drawn to his form

lying in a glass-topped casket

under a shroud

directly in front of me

unaware of whose

company I kept.

I solemnly venerated 

the relics but then

openly wept when

a Russian friend

found me standing there 

and whispered in broken English

"Innokenty of America, you know?"

My shoulders began 

to shake uncontrollably

as his words sank in.

Gratitude came in waves

for this loving 

“Enlightener of North America”

setting me adrift 

on a sea of wonder.

Prayers for my family

filled my heart to overflowing

pushing me to the stone floor

of a church in the heart of Russia.

***

Play-doh's Cave

Plato's Cave, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

my shadow
projected on
a wall

behind me
the glow of
a gladsome light

becoming a child
to learn
to turn towards

so much meaning
in so simple
a picture

My New Literary Agent

Last night I read Elias a snippet from my short story “Hospitocalypse” at his request. He listened intently, but after I was finished he asked, "So where's the part that explains how everyone gets to be a zombie?" I told him that an explanation was not in the story, only the cure. His response was, "Oh, you're a bad writer Daddy." He then went on to "help" me by brainstorming ideas to explain how the people in the hospital became zombies in the first place. "Maybe there's a bottle of medicine that is "Zombie Medicine" but someone gets confused and takes it thinking it's regular medicine." It appears I have a literary agent now.

Room 909

It was Friday afternoon at the end of a long work week and I was finishing up at the hospital documenting my last encounter of the day.  The beeping sounds coming from a bank of monitors at the nurse's station were distracting me, causing me to type and retype words to the point I wanted to start pulling plugs.  Worse yet, the nurses were starting to change shifts and multiple conversations were beginning to buzz about like pesky mosquitoes in my ear which no amount of swatting could silence. 

When I clamped my hands over my ears in frustration a nurse playfully slapped me on the back, "Are we bugging you Dr. Monk?"  I wanted to say something witty and biting but just gave a good-natured smile and nodded my head instead.  Many were simply passing on the gossip of the day, but at least one pair was actually discussing patient care.  It was from this conscientious couple that I heard the name "Roy" mentioned and it caught my attention. 

I think it must have been the way she said it.  It's not something I can explain now in retrospect, but it caught hold of me in some way.  My grandpa's name was Roy but we called him "Poppy".  He died well before any of my children were born and even before I was married 15 years ago.  I paused in writing my note and tried to tune into their conversation a little better by closing my eyes and bowing my head.  

"Are you praying we'll go away Dr. Monk?" the same nurse snorted.  I seriously wanted to strangle her but once again I just gave her a goofy grin with clinched teeth hidden behind closed lips. 

The last snatch of conversation I was able to hear mentioned room 909.  I made mental note of it and finished up my work.  I looked at my watch and was pleased to find it was just shy of 4 pm which meant my weekend was starting earlier than usual.  Pushing my chair back from the computer the name "Roy" squeezed its way back into my conscious awareness again.

Room 909 was at the end of an adjacent hallway, single occupancy, and I seemed to recall that it had a nice view of the eastern half of the city.  On a whim I pulled my chair back up to the computer, logged back in, and did a patient search using the 9th floor as my search criteria.  I scrolled down to 909 and then scanned over to the patient's name.  At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.  It appeared to be the name of my grandpa, even down to the correct middle initial.

A twisting sensation began to take hold of my stomach and I felt my connection with reality thinning a bit, like a tether had pulled tight and was threatening to snap.  My eyes pierced the screen looking through the name plainly sitting there, trying to understand its origin, to glean its secrets.  I closed my eyes and rubbed them vigorously but after the flash bulbs subsided I was still looking at the same name.

Trying not to get too freaked out I reasoned that there could be more than one person in the world with the same name.  But that middle initial carried with it some portent that I couldn't get past.  I knew one thing for sure.  There was no way I was leaving the hospital without visiting room 909.  

***

Walking that long hallway brought back a particular memory of Poppy, a man who loved steam locomotives and long walks.  On his 70th birthday he challenged himself by walking six miles on the railroad tracks through the country to an old abandoned train trestle and then six miles back.  Oddly enough I have the worn out leather boots he wore that day in the back of my closet.  I imagined myself walking beside him, an invisible visitor from the future, hearing the birds sing and watching critters scurry along the forest floor, even seeing them cross the tracks at a respectful distance.  He could have had a stroke or heart attack or even tripped and broke an ankle with no one around for miles to help, but he was fiercely independent and would have had it no other way.

Another memory was jarred loose as I passed a homeless man in a hospital gown sitting in a chair in the hallway.  He'd probably been admitted after being found unconscious on the city streets which was a common occurrence at this inner city hospital.  His raggedy and unkempt appearance reminded me of stories Poppy would tell about riding the rails when he was a young man.  It was the Great Depression and he traveled throughout the western United States from his home in Ohio by catching rides on boxcars.  I guess you could say he was a hobo, or at least played the part for a time. 

He liked to explain that he always had two belts during that time, one he wore around his waist and one looped through that one and the catwalk to keep him from falling off if he fell asleep.  He traveled with a friend working odd jobs for food and shelter, sleeping in barns and whatnot.  I remember him sharing a story about the time a man paid them to do some work for him and then invited them in to have dinner with the family around the table.  He assured me that the Great Depression was the greatest time in the history of this country because people “looked out for one another”.

Rounding the corner to the next hallway I passed two physical therapists standing on either side of an elderly patient with the shuffling gate and blank stare of advanced dementia.  Again my mind wandered back to a time when I visited Poppy in the nursing home after he'd begun to develop dementia.  He liked to sit near the nurse's station and watch people come and go.  I'd bring my physics and organic chemistry textbooks with me in the evening hours and sit with him doing homework.  There was some occasional small talk and he liked to share the random fact, but mostly we just sat together in silence while I tried to chase electrons through a chain of organic molecules.

During one particularly dark time he had become overmedicated to the point he had an acute decline in his functioning.  Within a few week's time he went from wearing buttoned shirts, slacks, and shoes to baggy sweats and slippers.  He made no effort to communicate and had a hard time lifting his feet to walk.  Something was definitely wrong and my parents made their concerns known to the head nurse who passed it on to the doctor who eventually stopped the offending medication.  Poppy came back to something a little more resembling normal after that, but it was during this period of rapid decline that I hatched a plan to get him down to a railway museum a few towns south of us that included a train ride.  I figured it couldn't hurt and it might do him some good.

I recruited a friend from college to help and we wheeled him out to my car.  He was very difficult to transfer from the wheelchair into the car but we managed it somehow and threw the collapsed wheelchair into the trunk after buckling him into the front seat.  He said nothing on the trip down.  At the railway museum we got him up the high steps into the train with some effort and seated him between us to keep him steady. 

The train whistle gave a  shrill burst and it was like someone flipped a switch.  Poppy sat up straighter and his eyes became more focused.  "That whistle is the conductor's way of letting the engineer know the train is ready to move," he said in a clear voice.  He then went on to explain what the  different number of whistles meant as well as some other information pertinent to running a passenger train.  This was the first time he'd spoken since we'd picked him up from the nursing home.

***

I straightened up and became more focused myself as I approached room 909.  It seemed strange that there were no nurses around, but it was shift change after all.  I suddenly felt terribly alone.  The cold sterility of my surroundings began to transform into a kind of physical sensation.  It was all very melodramatic and I was sure to be disappointed but I felt compelled to see it through.  I flattened out my palm on the door of room 909 and leaned into it with my head down.  "Count to three" I heard myself say.  "When the person who is not really my long dead grandpa sees me I'll just apologize and say I've got the wrong room.  But if it's Poppy... Lord have mercy."

My hand grabbed the door handle and on the count of three I pushed it down, gave a push, and let it swing open on its own.  Despite it being an overcast winter day, the room was awash in a warm glow.  Dust motes flashed in the rays of the sun slanting down through the windows like lazy sparks floating in the air.  The room appeared empty.  I walked in and gave my eyes some time to adjust.  I became aware of a figure sitting in the corner of the room looking out a large  window which stretched to the ceiling as well as the width of the room.  I once again became aware of a sensation like being untethered from reality. 

The figure was an elderly gray-haired man who appeared dressed to leave the hospital.  His back was to me and he was sitting on the edge of the bed leaning slightly forward with his hands on his knees gazing out the window expectantly.  As silly as it sounds I felt as if I were floating above the scene in one of those near death experiences.  I noticed he was wearing a worn brown corduroy overcoat with a dusting of dandruff on the shoulders like a sprinkling of snow on a freshly plowed field.  A plaid fedora was perched on his head with a tattered feather poking out from the band.  These were unmistakable parts of Poppy's limited wardrobe. 

At this point all thoughts of introducing myself and trying to normalize the situation was completely gone.  There was no protocol that I knew of to handle this kind of situation.  I kept a respectable distance as I came up beside him and stood still.  The brim of his hat covered his eyes in shadow but his large nose protruded out into the light.  All doubts completely evaporated when I saw the large single hair growing out from the bridge of his nose, a misplaced follicle that had always intrigued me by its location and isolation.  I had no idea what to do or say so I looked out the window to see what he might be looking at.

***

It shouldn't have surprised me at that point but I was surprised nonetheless to find I was not looking out over the city, but over an expanse of rolling mountains covered with trees as far as the eye could see.  It appeared to be summer and devoid of signs of human habitation.  I detected the slightest bit of movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see that Poppy's mouth had formed into a smile.  I looked back to those ancient mountains and noticed a break in the uniform green texture.  It looked to be a white line forming around a mountain bend to our extreme left, a line that was lifting up off the ground as it grew, losing its shape as it went.  I leaned in towards the window and placed my hands on the window sill to steady myself.  I squinted to see the growing object more clearly and a glint of sunshine flashed off its side.  As it drew closer it became clear to me why Poppy had smiled.  It was a tremendous steam locomotive belching great clouds of smoke.  It appeared to be following an arc that had us alongside its trajectory.  Glancing down I saw that a platform extended from the other side of the window to a set of railroad tracks.

Poppy reached down to grasp something I could not see beside the bed.  He held it firmly without taking his eyes off of the approaching train.  I once again thought to say something fearing that if I waited too long I would lose my chance.  But there was something sacred about that silence.  Somewhere deep inside I knew that speaking would shatter this vision into a million dream shards and my heart with it.

Poppy stood up with a battered carpetbag firmly in hand.  The movement was so sudden it startled me.  He reached forward and wrapped his large hand around an ornate doorknob that I had not noticed before.  I looked out to the platform which had disappeared in a great cloud of steam and in that moment I heard the door knob click.  Poppy stepped through the door and disappeared.  In a panic I lurched for the door to keep it from shutting.  The next thing I knew I was standing alone in an impenetrable fog.  I was so overcome with emotion that tears began to flow from my eyes.

"Poppy, please," I sobbed, my hands covering my face.

The cloud of steam dissipated and I felt the sun warming the backs of my hands.  When I lowered them he was standing directly in front of me with the sun at his back making it almost painful to gaze at him.  The locomotive was resting at our side pulsing with a fearsome energy, like some great panting beast.  Poppy sat down his carpetbag and embraced me.  An exchange occurred that was a kind of communion, as true a communication as there can be with no words spoken or needing to be spoken.  A whistle from the train blew sharp and loud.  The scene around me was drawn up like a snatched cloth and I once again found myself standing in room 909 looking out on a bleak winter cityscape.

***

"Are you OK Dr. Monk?" a voice behind me asked.

I turned to find a nurse standing in the doorway.  I was still dazed from what had just happened and didn't answer right away but I immediately recognized her as the nurse that I had found so annoying earlier.

"I followed you when I saw you going into an empty room.  I thought maybe you got your room numbers mixed up."

I finally managed to say, "Thanks for looking out for me... I'm sorry, what is your name?"

"Becky.”

"Thank you, Becky.  I was looking for someone who is not here anymore."

"Was he discharged?" she asked. 

"You could say that.  I think he's headed home."

_______________________________

The Silly Siberian Story

Proposed Church Building Project, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

I've decided on a new strategy for writing. Instead of trying hard to write well and failing, I will start out writing as poorly as I can with the reassuring thought that I can only improve. This story in particular is dedicated to my friends at the Orthodox Writer's Guild. May you stay warm and write well.

Aaron
_______________________________________

It was a dark and stormy night in deepest Siberia. The church was encrusted with snow and ice obliterating all trace of color to the point it looked like a white cardboard architectural model in a church fellowship hall. The worshippers in their big furry Russian-looking hats scurried inside like homeless mice looking for bread crumbs. They would not have batted a frozen eyelash if Dr. Zhivago himself had pulled up in a horse drawn sleigh with his girlfriend named Lara.

Inside the church-cum-ice palace they huddled in a shivering mass looking for all intents and purposes to be a giant sleeping bear which was ironic because this region of Siberia was known as Ursa Somnolus. The walls might as well have been made from cardboard in trying to keep out that ultra-severe bone chilling cold, but as I mentioned earlier this was not an architectural model in a church fellowship hall somewhere in the MidWest, but a bona fide Russian Orthodox peasant church from deepest Siberia in which this story is set, OK?

So, where was I? Oh yes, the figurative sleeping bear was waiting for the service to begin. The mighty Russian deacon tromped out onto the solea but not before the bell ringer's mallet shattered the brittlely frozen bell into a million little singing pieces signaling the service to begin. Nonplussed, the deacon bellowed out with a deep basso profundo voice that set the church's foundations to shaking. The huddled mass of wooly worshippers began to awaken as large cracks began to spread through the floors, like what happens in movies when they try to really ratchet up the suspense. With nary a whimper the colorless structure collapsed into a heap of sanctified rubble.  KA-RAAASH!  BOOM!  *secondary explosions*

Within minutes a supersonic helicopter zoomed in overhead and a lone figure erupted from its innards like a black condor giving birth. With only feet to spare the figure deployed his parachute at the last possible second and pounced on the pile of ruble. It was none other than Vladimir Putinovich himself who promptly ripped off his shirt and began throwing large beams of wood off those trapped below. His torso steamed with sweat and super human effort. Within minutes everyone was freed, had been given CPR, and were communed with the reserve host from the altar which had been left miraculously untouched by the cataclysm.

Dr. Zhivago never did show up, but they all lived happily ever after anyway.

Zombie Story by Elias

On a typical day when Elias is unable to play outside due to inclement weather or being sick he will spend an inordinate amount of time on our computer creating worlds on Minecraft.  When the computer is unavailable he will sometimes fire up my old laptop that he has inherited and use the word processing program to write letters to me and his mom, journal about some recent activity, or write a story.  

Below is a story he wrote a month or two ago.  The photo is something I did for fun on Photoshop when he was three and we were living in Tennessee.  I hope you enjoy this very short story:

One day this guy was going to play with the neighborhood kids and when he was going to play with the neighborhood kids they were all zombies and skeletons and then I ran away. Then I ran to my house but my mom and dad were zombies and then I saw a guy with mind control and I fought him and I won and all the people were not zombies and skeletons. It was safe.

"Aaroneous Monk"

"Aaroneous Monk", a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

The past few summers my family and I have made several trips to see a doctor who practices in a quaint little town near Cleveland. As part of these trips we frequent a putt putt golf course that is situated in the middle of nowhere about 5 miles from the doctor's office. It is a melancholy place surrounded by forest and with few patrons, or at least the day of the week and the time of day we visit there is rarely anyone there but us. The strangeness of its isolation sparked an idea for a story last summer which in its most basic form involves a monk living alone on an abandoned putt putt golf course. Over the course of this past year the story has grown in complexity and made some very strange twists and turns in my head eventually giving me an opening scene, a climactic scene, and a scattering of events in between.

There is one small problem. I am not a writer. Ever since Elias was born I have satisfied myself with telling stories by taking photographs. This has given me a great deal of pleasure but it is not the same thing as using words to tell a story. The closest I've gotten to writing are the poems I've penned in conjunction with particular photographs I've taken. This practice of pairing poems with photographs proved to be most poignant for me when I was deployed to Iraq. Whatever pain I was feeling at being separated from my wife and two year old son or the intense conflict I felt about being a reluctant participant in a war could be bound up in a photo-poem and released in a kind of creative catharsis.

But this idea has continued to grow in my head sending out shoots in odd directions to the point I feel compelled to at least take a crack at it. My first step toward this goal was to pull my old copy of Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" off the shelf and start to look at the basic mechanics of writing. Next I ordered Stephen King's "On Writing" as an e-book to see what a popular and prolific author might have to say in the way of crafting fiction. A few months ago I e-mailed author Jim Forest asking for advice. He basically said to "keep putting sentences together until it makes sense." Working from that I've been trying to blog more and even wrote a Short Story inspired by a weekend call at the hospital in which I mingled coffee with the apocalypse. It clocked in at ~7500 words which is probably the most I've written in a single project since my senior thesis 20 years ago.

Just last week I found "The Nighttime Novelist: Finish Your Novel in Your Spare Time" by Joseph Bates at Half Price Books. It has helped me start to think about what I need to do to pull this beast of an idea together in order to make a cohesive novel out of it. The analogy that came to mind today was that I want to build a house, but I've never built a house before and I don't have all the tools I need.  Worse yet, the materials needed to build it are scattered about in random piles.

It is easy to become overwhelmed with the thought it could take years to bring to fruition ("Pre-order now with expected publication in 2025!") and with no guarantee that it will ever really go anywhere. So, to make it feel more real I have created the book cover to my unwritten novel to psych myself out. It is a picture of Elias and me that gives a feel for what the overall theme of the book might be. The working title is the name of the protagonist, Aaroneous Monk, which will likely change before publication (think positive thoughts, think positive thoughts). The use of "A. Wesley Haney" was something I thought of years ago as a pen name when I wanted to write but wasn't. Wish me luck!

The Mystery of Dragon Valley

Soyo San, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

Miracles are funny things. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition there is a prayer that begins, "Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth who is everywhere present and filling all things..." In light of this prayer and in the experience of the Saints there is a sense that miracles are not rare but in fact continuous, albeit mostly unnoticed. Sometimes even those of us who are not pure in heart can see them. By this I mean catching a glimpse of God at work in a way that can be experienced as something extra-ordinary. It is one of these obvious miracles that came to mind this past week while posting pictures online of my son jumping snow ramps on his sled.

The story goes back to 1992 when I was 23 years old and an infantryman in Korea. The year previous I'd been a senior at Indiana Wesleyan University but when the first Gulf War broke out I made an impulsive decision to join the Army. An opportunity arose to join a group led by our Chaplain to go skiing over a three day weekend and I jumped at the chance. We caravanned South to YongPyeong or "Dragon Valley" which is a famous ski resort in South Korea. I had only skied a handful of times before but considered myself quite the accomplished skier. This was partly the braggadocio of youth, partly a superman complex, and partly the fact that I had always picked up sports quickly and with a sense of ease.

Well, YongPyeong Ski Resort was *not* Paoli Peaks in Southern Indiana where I'd learned to ski. It had actual mountains with some very treacherous spots. One of my friends who came along on the trip had relegated herself to the bunny slopes which earned her my light hearted derision. We had heard that a Korean girl had died earlier in the season by going off the trail and into the trees which should have given me some pause, but I was no girl! I was Superman flying down mountainsides without a cape!

Over the course of the three days at YongPyeong I skied from sunup to well into the evening hours. My daring-do escalated day by day with the growing certainty that I was a world class skier able to accelerate down the slopes at eye watering speeds. At one point there were some older Korean men off to the side of a run standing around and talking. Beside and above them was a wall of snow and ice whose angle was not much off of vertical. I was going at a high rate of speed and impulsively decided to go up that wall and over them by about fifteen feet or so. I was not content to be Superman but had to be Spiderman as well. My skis were shaking violently with one leg folded up under me and the other extended fully to maintain contact with the wall. As I passed above the men one of them was yelling at me and shaking his fist with an angry expression. At the time I was mystified by his reaction but now as an older adult myself I realize he was angry because what I was doing was extremely foolhardy and was endangering myself and others.

On a different run another young enlisted soldier and I found more ways to push the envelope. Two slopes that weren't particularly steep ran parallel to each other and you could choose one or the other by which direction you got off the ski lift, left or right. By choosing the lower slope we could build up enough speed by half way down to hit a small connecting incline up to the higher slope. This patch of steep ground was not made to ski on. There were several sizeable rocks peaking out above the snow and the ski lift towers ran up through this area. With enough speed (while avoiding the towers) we could throw sparks from our skis when hitting the rocks and then catapult up onto the higher slope catching some air. Thank goodness my Mom did not know what I was up to in Korea!

The last day of skiing at YongPyeong found me sore and starting to feel the drain of the previous two days. My friend was still on the bunny slopes that morning and she asked me to take her camera so she could have some pictures from the top of the mountain. I readily agreed and put the camera in the side cargo pocket of my pants. I made my way up to one of my favorite runs which included a switchback. The first few times I went down it I noticed some young male Korean skiers in flashy ski gear and goggles hotdogging the switchback. The trail was quite wide and circled around the side of the mountain until making a 180 degree turn before continuing down again going the opposite direction. On the upper part of the switchback you couldn't see the lower part because the earth between them was a raised lip with trees growing all along it. Right at the point where the inside of the trail made its 180 degree turn the lip was treeless and formed a hump. I saw these Korean skiers shooting across the trail at such an angle that they could ramp over the hump and down onto the lower part of the switchback from the upper part. Lining the outside of that curve were iron poles with orange mesh strung between them to keep anyone from careening over the edge and into the trees if they couldn't make the turn.

There I was in my Army issue all-green wet weather gear and cheap aviator sunglasses thinking I could pull off what these flashy (and experienced) Korean skiers were doing. The next time down I hugged the mountain side of the trail waiting to cut across and hit that hump. My heart was racing and I started thinking that maybe I was going a bit too fast. This thought was quickly replaced by "It's gonna be awesome!" I dug the edge of the ski closest to the hump down hard to make the sharp turn and found myself rocketing towards it as planned. What was not planned was encountering someone on the lower trail in my line of travel. I crested the hump and there she was, a female Captain from my group skiing lazily down the slope. I immediately perceived that continuing my arc would end in a collision with her and likely result in broken bones and maybe even a concussion for us both.

A split second decision was made and I allowed myself to fall over instead of continuing on my trajectory down the trail. The laws of physics assured that I immediately beelined for the orange mesh fence since my skis were no longer cutting a hard turn. The mesh was upon me almost instantly and I remember a very hard hit, flipping high up into the air, and then an abrupt stop on the other side. I wasn't exactly sure what had happened. When I opened my eyes I was looking at the trees that grow down the mountainside, but they were upside down. I realized the top of my head was just touching the snow on the ground but the rest of my body was directly above me defying gravity. I bent my neck forward to look up and discovered that the cuff of my pant leg had snagged the top of one of the iron posts that I had hit at near full speed. I started laughing just as a wide-eyed Korean man with a panicked look on his face peered over the mesh fence not knowing what he'd find.

"You OK? You OK?" he panted.

"Yeah, I'm OK. Could you just lift up on my boot", I pointed to where I was caught fast on the pole. He looked skeptical because on my side of the fence the ground fell away sharply and I was practically dangling in space. I convinced him it was OK and another Korean man joined him. With some grunting and lifting they were able to pop it free and I immediately collapsed into a pile on the wrong side of the fence. I flipped over so that my head was now uphill and slid down a foot or so. By flattening out my body I was able to stop sliding and climb back up to the fence. The two Korean men got me hoisted back over and I thanked them in what little Korean I knew. They just kinda shook their heads in disbelief and then skied on.

Sitting on the snow I could not believe I had just smashed into an iron pole, flipped end over end into the air, and then been snagged by the cuff of my pant leg as my body was headed off down the side of the heavily forested mountainside. My pant leg was partially pulled out of the boot and when I went to pull it free something fell out onto the snow. I looked at the two small objects in confusion. I took off my gloves and picked them up. They were batteries. For the first time since going over the fence I realized my right leg was very sore right in the middle of my thigh. I went to rub it and discovered the bulk of something in my cargo pocket right where it hurt. I opened the pocket and found my friend's smashed camera. It had squarely taken the brunt of my leg hitting that pole and most likely saved it from being broken. After getting myself together I continued skiing for another hour or two until it was time to leave. My leg was killing me but I couldn't bring myself to end the trip prematurely. When we got back to base that evening after a long drive I gingerly took off my pants and found a large rectangular bruise perfectly shaped like the camera on my thigh.

So, this could be a kind of miracle, one for someone who is nearly blind and deaf to such things, a sequence of highly improbable if not impossible events that would require CGI effects for Hollywood to replicate. A deeper mystery might be why the Korean girl died and I lived. I cannot bring the incident to mind without thinking of her. As we say in the Orthodox Church, "May her memory be eternal."

Mary was Missing

Elias and I say our evening prayers together each night before bed in front of his self-constructed icon corner in his room. These include the Trisagion Prayers, a kind of free form whatever-comes-to-mind part, and then we finish up with singing "To Thee the Champion Leader." Some time last week we were singing this song and it struck me that there was no icon of Mary present to whom the song is addressed. I pointed this out to Elias and we agreed that this must be rectified as soon as possible.

The weekend came and went with the celebration of Theophany and the blessing of waters. Elias was able to acquire his very own bottle of Holy Water to put in his icon corner. He was sipping it frequently and I reminded him it had to last a whole year until next Theophany. He informed me he just wanted to use it to keep himself from getting sick. I left it at that with the assumption that kids oftentimes simply know what is spiritually appropriate when I do not with my jaded existence and repetitive stumblings. I figured if the bottle empties sooner rather than later we'll just cross that bridge when we get to it. Who knows? Maybe there will be more Holy Water under the bridge.

So then I got home from work today and found wrapping paper strewn throughout the kitchen. Elias came downstairs with something behind his back. He said, "Remember Daddy that we don't have Mary in our icon corner?" Yes, I told him I was aware of that. He then revealed what was in his hands, a beautiful little icon diptych of Mary and Jesus. As it turns out my parents were unable to attend his birthday a week and a half ago because everyone had gotten sick and so they did not make the trip. She couldn't wait for some undetermined future date that we would see them again and so she mailed his gift, the diptych.

We talked a little about how God uses others to show his love in a way that binds us all together.

I am a Lighthouse

Spring Break '90, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

____________


I am a lighthouse
beam of light
pointing outwards
throwing all into
stark relief
revealing every foible
and inconsistency
illuminating what is hidden
judging what is revealed
but inside this bricked tower
it is black as night
where the light
does not penetrate
I am a lighthouse


***

An Unexpected Movie

I took my 8 year old son to see The Hobbit tonight for his birthday. Truth in advertising should have required some kind of warning like "very loosely based on the novel by JRR Tolkien". I was willing to suspend judgement and let it go where it would for the sake of artistic license, but the "art" was incredibly sparse, replaced instead by an unbelievable amount of unnecessary and over the top filler that made it look like a clone of The Lord of the Rings movies and distorted the original story almost beyond recognition. I say this because the kind of movie making Peter Jackson does well, IMO, is a closer fit to LOTR than The Hobbit. Those who have read both The Hobbit and LOTR books are aware that the tone of each is very different and within this difference of tone is a consistent story that is true to its respective tone.

In this context it seems to me that The Hobbit movie has been (Peter Jackson) LOTR-ized to the point I recognized very little of the original book in it. There are whole elements in the movie that do not even exist in the book and distort the characters, disconnecting them from themselves and their place in Tolkien's overall story. I found myself liking many of them simply because I associate them with their vastly superior brethren in the book. This was most true for me in regards to Gandalf who I feel is sacrosanct in Tolkien's books and I was saddened to see him acting very unGandalf-ish at times. His interactions with the Goblin King were particularly troubling to me. The only scene that I felt was done extremely well (ie, in the full spirit of the book) was the song of the dwarves in Bilbo's hobbit hole. The riddle game with Gollum was probably the second best, but was changed somewhat from the book in a way that I felt was unnecessary.

Another criticism I have is that many elements from the book were sensationalized to the point of being utterly ridiculous. One of many examples is when the protagonists are treed by the wargs after escaping from the Goblin Kingdom. They are not just trapped in trees, but they are trapped in trees that are precariously growing on a precipice, and as if that were not enough each tree ends up falling into the next such that they leap from one to the next until all are on the one tree that happens to be at the very tip of the precipice, but it is not enough that it is on the tip of a (overhanging!) precipice but it must fall too, except it stops just where the ground would be if it weren't at the edge of a cliff so that they are all dangling out in space. It reminded me of the Scooby Doo cartoons my son loves to watch. Unfortunately there were many more scenes like this one that stretched the suspension of disbelief well beyond any reasonable breaking point.

So, if you loved what Peter Jackson did with LOTR you may very well enjoy this one as well. There are many of the same cinemagraphic techniques used to keep the heart racing and make you feel like you're on a roller coaster ride, but if you want the profound story telling of Tolkien's beloved book I'm afraid you will likely be disappointed.

A Christmas Miracle

Peace in a Box® (detail), a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

A peculiar memory found me today and I wanted to write it down before it left again. In college I had a Serbian American friend who I first met at the local Orthodox Mission. I had only just become Orthodox and was enjoying making friends with students from Greece, Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East among other places. This Serbian American girl was shy, soft spoken, and of very few words. It was at least a few months before I figured out she spoke perfect English and had actually lived in American since she was a young child. She did not appear to be particularly pious and did not commune at our parish when she visited off and on the first several months. This perspective had more to do with my own misguided piety and knee jerk judgmentalism than the state of this sweet girl's soul.

As I got to know her better we became friends and I met some of her family members. Her parents spoke with a heavy accent and had grown up in Communist Yugoslavia before immigrating to the United States. My friend told me that growing up they would go to church on Pascha and on St. Sava's Day, that most famous and popular of Serbian saints, but not much else besides. My experience was so very different in that my father was a Protestant minister and we attended church up to three times a week every week for as far back as I could remember. She was very gracious in our conversations about faith which was in stark contrast to my own more obnoxious approach fueled by a convert's zeal. Over the course of time she began participating more fully in her Orthodox faith, probably in spite of my influence if I am to be painfully honest.

It was within this context that she shared with me a story her father told her when she was home over Christmas Break. He was aware of her burgeoning interest though he was not a very religiously minded person himself having grown up in a country where such things were actively discouraged. What he shared surprised her because it was not like anything he'd ever talked about before. The story was about something remarkable that had happened in their village in Serbia when he was a young man.

During the course of a cold and dreary winter day someone in that village noticed something peculiar about the frost that had formed on a window near the center of town. Upon closer inspection they were shocked to find the image of the Theotokos and Christ Child (as depicted in icons) distinctly formed in the ice crystals. Word spread quickly and a large crowd grew around the window. My friend's father pushed his way to the front to get a look for himself. It was something inexplicable but undeniable. It didn't take long for the local authorities to catch wind about what was happening but they did not know what to do about it at first, not wanting to get the villagers too upset. After just a few days too many people were coming to see and venerate this miraculous image and so they were forced to act. Soldiers came and broke the window.

My friend was taken aback by how matter-of-factly he told the story, a story he had never shared with her before. It was like the miracle had a second run in their home in the retelling, a shared moment between father and daughter.

Tai Chi for Sixty Plus

shadow of a man, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

The poster caught my attention as I prepared to enter the elevator after a workout at the fitness center: "Tai Chi: moving for better balance". It included a blurb from the CDC which asserted that it was an "evidence-based fall prevention program that helps participants aged sixty and older to improve functional balance and physical performance." My interest was piqued because I'd been thinking of taking a Tai Chi class in the community for quite some time but never seemed to have the time or money to make it happen. As a member of the fitness center I could take this biweekly three month course for free during my lunch hour.

I wondered about the "sixty and older" part though. I'm a forty three year old father of two and husband of one in relatively good health if you don't count an intermittently bum knee that I got when deployed to Iraq six years ago. My enthusiasm for Tai Chi actually came from my time in Iraq. While living on a base outside of Tikrit I participated in some Tai Chi classes at night in the inner courtyard of a building located about a mile from our clinic. It was a winding path mostly traveled in near pitch blackness with stars shining hard and cold overhead. I learned the path at night and probably could not have found it in the daytime.

I only learned the first ten of the sixty plus moves but it was enough in repetition to find a source of solace and stress relief in the flowing motions. Our rustic clinic building had its own internal courtyard that was open to the sky, a common feature in the Middle East. A wide ladder-like structure made out of metal tubing slanted up one side of it and allowed access to the roof. When possible I'd clamber up it and onto the roof as the sun was setting and go through my movements facing the breathtaking spectacle of a desert horizon exploding with color. I don't know that I've ever experienced anything quite like that before or since, like getting a taste of some exquisite and exotic dish with flavors never before imagined.

So, by the time I'd gotten back to my office from the fitness center I decided to go back and see if the "sixty and older" thing was a deal breaker. I talked with one of the managers who was quite sure I could participate and she put me on the list and took my number if that was to change. I felt well on my way to inner peace even with the start date still 2 weeks away, a kind of placebo effect.

On the way back to my office I had a Walter Mitty moment imagining a scenario where a purse snatcher was running towards me from behind, purse in hand, leaving a little old lady crying and purseless on the ground. Before I could turn to see what all the hubbub was about he would slam into me. As I fell forward my training would kick in with the swan-dives-for-bread-crumb move*. Quickly regaining my feet I would swiftly transition into the sweeping-bug-under-the-rug move* ending with the purse snatcher falling flat out on his back and staring up at me stunned. Standing over him and with a bit of swagger I'd say, "Just be glad I'm not over sixty, 'cause then I'd have a cane."


*These are not the names of any actual Tai Chi moves that I know of but a product of my fevered imagination.

The Little Man

__________________________

He is staring at the wall mounted TV when I enter the hospital room and it is not clear to me that he knows I'm there.

"Hello, Mr. Smith.  I'm Dr. Haney."

His head slowly swivels in my direction and nods.  "Hi."

"How are you feeling today?"

A pause, "OK."

"What brings you to the hospital, Mr. Smith?"

A long pause, "A stroke?"

A question from a question.

I see many people with cognitive deficits in my line of work.  It could be dementia or delirium, psychosis or stroke, intoxication or withdrawal.  Mr. Smith is typical, that is to say he is elderly with multiple medical problems and on multiple medications.  He doesn't fully hear, see, or understand what is going on around him, yet there he is, talking to me in his own limited way.

Looking at him and allowing my mind to wander a bit (he doesn't seem to notice or care) I imagine there's a little man inside his head.  He sits in a little chair somewhere just back from the eyes and maybe in line with the ears.  It is dark all around him but to the front some light gets in through the eye holes.  Sounds come to him from a distance, muted, like in a heavy fog at night.  If too much sensory information reaches the little man he becomes overwhelmed and confused.  He is tiny after all.

The scene repeats itself, but now I am able to share the little man's perceptions as he sits there patiently in the dark.

A shadow passes the eye holes but is ignored.  Then a sound comes slow and low like speech in a slow-mo reel.  The little man leans forward to see what is making the noise.  Out of the corner of the eye hole something is blocking the light from the window.  The head rotates and he can see someone standing there.  "Hi."

Now that he sees it is a person next to him he leans towards that ear.  "How are you feeling today?" the shadow person asks.  His answer is automatic, socially conditioned, short, but it still takes some time to be expressed, "OK." 

Another question makes its way through the cognitive ether and he's prepared to give it his full attention this time.  "What brings you to the hospital, Mr. Smith?"  When it finally gets to him sitting in his little chair it requires some sifting through recent memories.  They're jumbled and not well organized, like things accumulated pell mell over the years and stored in the attic.  The lights of an ambulance flash in the darkness around him as a result of his search and he answers unsure of what he's found, "A stroke?"

I bring myself back into my own present reality and am relieved to find I am inhabiting my body fully and to its extremes.  The muddle and delay are gone, my senses are sharp and the grasp of my situation is immediate once again.  I realize my mind and body may very well be burdened with these limitations in the future, but instead of becoming somber or morose about it I remember my grandma's voice from childhood saying, "How's my little man?"

______________________________

Published as “The Little Man: Through the Cognitive Ether” Psychiatric Times, March 2013.

Love is Timeless

love is timeless
but also placeless
from a time outside of time
and a place outside of place
the energy from which
our world sprung
a spinning dynamo
of three persons
sharing one substance
a never ending hug
an eternal embrace

***