Full house

Minutes in the ER take longer.
Hours in the ER take longer.
It's a prison inside the safe walls of the hospital.

I stare at the kids toothpaste's stains on my jeans, proof of my life as a mom, while I listen to incoming ambulances and screaming voices. I had just put the boys to bed when all of a sudden a call to the emergency room needed to be made. Back to being Mrs. Handhold.

I wait and my ears are scanning the footsteps. One by one they are passing by. To the trembling junkies, the shrieking babies and the moaning men. Amidst the noises Kenji is silent. The noises turn into rumours whispering 'the hospital is chock-full'. No bed on whatever floor is to be found for Kenji, the transplantation patient with a fever under immunosuppressants.

I wait in silence and watch the day turn into night.

Five hours later the prison gates open. The nursing staff of the sixth floor has cleared a bed by exception.