Steven M. Wilson

I was in Frankfort, Kentucky, visiting a good friend when Priscilla called.

“I’ve been diagnosed with leukemia,” she said.

I replied, “I’m coming home.” I told my friend, gathered my belongings, and started out. Strangely, I felt nothing, or it seemed that all emotions had fled. It’s difficult to tell, especially after time has passed. I saw only the interstate and traffic and was aware of driving and nothing else.

Occasionally thoughts would flash through my mind, ill-formed, shadowy, broken pieces. It was cancer, it was terminal, she would suffer, there was no cure. I was alone with my thoughts and the traffic.

I arrived at the hospital, found Priscilla and her daughter Nellie in the Emergency Room, and hugged her. She was remarkably calm, and my emotions were still absent to it was only the mundane that filled the void. How are you? Do you want anything? There’s a vending machine over there.

We all wore masks. The room was crowded, people in various stages of suffering walked about, others slumped in chairs, some covered with the thin white blankets the hospital dispenses. There was a general buzz of conversation with the universal knowledge among everyone in the room that they would have to wait. That was the worst of it, waiting. That and the suffering.

I sat next to Priscilla, holding her hand, and Nellie, who had taken her to the hospital, went home. We talked and she told me about the call from the doctor with the result of her bone biopsy. You have leukemia. Go to the emergency room and get admitted to the hospital, the doctor advised her.

Still, her diagnosis had not sunk in. I suppose it is my nature to immediately become calm, almost numb, during emergencies. “You’re unflappable,” Priscilla had once commented. Perhaps.

We waited, heartened briefly as patients were called to the desk to be distributed to the tiny admission rooms scattered around the perimeter of the large room before they were assigned doctors. We both hoped to hear her name called over the PA, but that didn’t happen, and the time, the waiting, continued.

She had her phone and I had mine and in between snatches of conversation, most of it inconsequential, we entertained ourselves. It was very strange, surreal in fact, as the Emergency Room became our universe.

The room resonated with anguish and the tiny dramas that blossom from uncertainty, and fear. A bearded man with a blood-soaked bandage covering his hand, sitting next to an impossibly thin woman whose fingers dart over the keyboard of her phone in a frenzy. They are poor, it’s easy enough to see that by their dress, and their manner. Imagine that? I can tell they are poor because of the way they behave and for a moment I condemn them for their condition. Am I that callous? That insensitive?

No. You are protecting yourself, wrapping yourself in stories as surely as they were made of chainmail. I have the absurd notion that their transgressions lead them here, that they were somehow at fault. They might have been, but on the other hand they could have been the victims of circumstance. Condemning them and their activities for the reason they were at the hospital restores some level of logic to the scene, and logic is the safest refuge in chaos. Or one would think so. The erred, therefore they had to pay the penalty. All neat and tidy.

Over on the other side of the room, beyond the Admission Desk, is an Asian couple, older, quiet, whispering to one another. They are non-descript, almost invisible so that if I were to concoct a story about them (simply to keep my mind busy), it would be shallow and false.

I scan the tan walls of the large Emergency Room, blossoming with placards, announcements, and directives. Some of the paint has been rubbed off the walls by the backs of the chairs. Several of the chairs themselves are stained, their vinyl covering ripped, and the carpet, a vague design or interlocking gray figures, is worn in pathways between rows of chairs. Banks of florescent lights overhead cast a benign illuminance over the scene, robbing nearly everything of genuine color, particularly the people sprawled in chairs or walking aimlessly about.

Those are the benefits of being a writer. My mind cannot rest when snatches of humanity present themselves to me and as a result I have to create stories. For the hours we spent at the Emergency Room, I did exactly that. As I did the true situation would intrude, remind me why I was really there, and then disappear. It was a contest to see which would control my thinking.

And then, back to my stories.

 Here is my revelation; I have been a writer all my life, certainly not officially so but as a means to divorce myself from unpleasant situations. I did not have to face fear, disappointment, frustration, confusion, because all I need do was embark upon an adventure. Immerse myself in a story. Become the hero, or the protagonist, fight villains, lead gallant charges, or slide into the oblivion that appears before thoughts are fully formed or stories clearly constructed.

An English teacher in high school once told me, “I look up and you’re always staring out of the window. Daydreaming.” I wondered about her observation and decided she was absolutely correct. Congratulations, young sir, you are an emerging writer.

As time crawled toward early morning, I would occasionally scan the room, reading notices posted on the walls, catching glimpses of some minor event, watching people in various levels of distress walk, or sleep, or talk to one another.

Fatigue had already set in, numbing the body and soul. The crowd thins out as names are called and I’m certain that it was only a matter of time before we were released from the general population of the Emergency Room.

Her name follows, and we rise stiffly, our muscles protesting movement because we have occupied those uncomfortable chairs for close to eight hours. We are instructed to go to an admitting room. A nurse, far too pleasant for the early morning hours, but caring, takes Priscilla’s blood pressure in a tiny, battered room, asks questions, and dutifully notes the response on a chart. Blood, the medium of exchange, is drawn, to be whisked away. Somewhere, invisible, nameless, highly educated professionals will review the results. I watch because as a writer, I am an observer. The nurse leaves and Priscilla and I are alone.

A doctor, young and earnest arrives and discusses Priscilla’s situation. A room is being prepared, he tells us, and for the first time both she and I know progress is being made. She and he discuss the circumstances that brought her to the hospital, and I sit, barely a participant. The importance of my role is slowly fading, and Priscilla suggests I go home. I am reluctant at first, but logic (occasionally making a brief appearance in the midst of the event), advocates that I do so. The doctor leaves, she and I hug and kiss, and I promise I will return sometime later.

I find my car in a cavernous parking garage, light my pipe, start the car and drive toward the exit. Dawn has barely arrived, darkness unwilling to relinquish its place in the sky as I drive along nearly deserted streets.

When I arrive at the condo I sit quietly in my car, my feelings calcified, reviewing the night’s events. Still, for all that has happened, I am numb which I find confusing and troubling.

I should, I decide, feel something. Loss, fear, concern, any of the appropriate emotion, but nothing appears. Then I realize that I have reverted to my old practice of distancing myself from uncomfortable situations.

The writer, omnipresent, and all-powerful, has taken over.