mainsqueeze's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Imagine you can�t close your eyes without seeing pools of blood on white linoleum flooring. Imagine the starkness of the room, the mingling smells of insanity and grieving women and aerosol air freshener and tears and sweat and death and sadness deep and cold and cryingbleedingaching and medicine that doesn�t cure anything. Imagine it, imagine it, damnit. Imagine her tear-streaked face in your hands and what are you going to do to make it better? What are you going to do to fix this big huge mess and fix this broken girl and her broken body and her broken heart? Whatareyougoingtodoaboutit? WhatamIgoingtodoaboutit? She sits. Her clothes are neatly folded and placed on a metal stool. She leans back against the crinkling paper. He comes in, puts on his gloves. I sit. My hands are tight knots in my lap. �Don�t stand,� he says. �You can talk to her and hold her hand, but do not stand up.� I hold her hand. I talk to her. I say, �Hush, it�s okay, it�s all okay, I won�t let anything bad happen, this is the right thing it�s okay it�s okay it�s okay, you�ll be okay,� and I�m lying, and I feel myself crying and trying not to cry because I have to be strong for her. The nurse, cold black hair, cold black eyes, cold white gloves, opens a valve, hands her the mask. The doctor says, �Remember to keep breathing. Look at the mobile.� I look at the mobile, too, the brightly colored tropical fish swinging back and forth above her head. She closes her eyes. He turns on a machine and tells her it may sting a little and she flinches and I can tell it stings a lot because of the way she grits her teeth and doesn�t remember to breathe, like he said. And she cries. I remind her to keep breathing and I remind her that it will be okay. And it�s over quick, because it was so small, the doctor told us. The doctor and the nurse leave the room. She stands. She tries to stand. I catch her when her knees buckle. We see the blood at the same moment, bright and apple-red and it might have been almost beautiful if we hadn�t known its origin. She walks to the car with her thighs far apart. She�s hurting. The drive home. Her pale, shaking hands. She looks out the window and says, �That was the most horrible thing I�ve ever had to do.� And those words, those simple- deceptively simple- words, will be with me until I die. 2:12 p.m. - 2003-06-27 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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