Impuls

The break room is noisy, smells of coffee and spicy Chinese food – one of the many residents eagerly eats noodles from a box, watching a soap show on TV. A woman sitting on the other side of the couch is upside down reading an anatomy book; another is talking loudly with Harmon, waiting for dinner to warm up in the microwave:

– By the way, Apple invented a watch that can do an EKG! What about us? We don't have all the nurses on the ward trained to do it…! What are they getting paid for, you ask?

James takes her around the waist and awkwardly kisses her cheek; the woman immediately flushes and playfully taps his forehead with a spoon.

At a small table, three Indian-looking men, armed with a tablet, are watching a video about robots. The thinnest and tallest one keeps hitting the table with his palm and shouting something in a language Emily does not know. The other two are nodding their heads in agreement, setting him back down.

A few feet away, another nurse is playing online checkers.

Emily walks over to the wide-open window and breathes in with her chest full – the rain that started last night doesn't even think about stopping; the room is chilly, to say the least.

– Oh, Johnson! – Harmon pulls away from the conversation and notices her. – You're in surgery with Gilmore today. – He holds out a red mug with the NESCAFE logo, and against the grayness of the sky it seems like a bright flash. – With Gilmore, yes," he repeats, looking intently at Emily. – Consider the cure.

The bitter, strong coffee burns her palate and fills her half-empty stomach. Emily nods appreciatively – and suddenly gets a smile in return.

And it nudges her forward.

– Dr. Harmon, what do you know about Dr. Clark?

The resident seems to have been expecting this question since her very first day on the ward. He grins, shoves his hands into the pockets of his gown, and takes out a cigarette and puts it behind his ear for some reason.

– Clark, Clark, Clark," he repeats, bending and unbending his arms. – A surgeon is such a surgeon! – exclaims. – I tell you, Johnson, he'll take a bullet out of your brain before you know it, yeah, so you don't even move. Clark's like a shrine, everybody prays on her, ha-ha, pray on a man, that's what I said…! Not everybody," Harmon added in a conspiratorial whisper. – Moss doesn't pray, ha-ha, he's an atheist. – And then he gets serious. Doesn't she love you? No, she doesn't.

– I didn't please her in some way," sighed Emily, taking another sip. – "Even though I've barely seen her.

– I don't." "Okay. – He waves his hand. – I like you, Johnson, yes, I like you, you're, like, honest, open, well, yes, so let me tell you this. – Harmon kicks a chair over to him and sits on it. – You listen, yeah. Listen carefully. So when I came in, Clark had just started working, and I came in a long time ago, let me remember, about five years ago, and it was practice, yes, practice. So I came in, and I was in her surgery. She took out a tumor, imagine, seven centimeters, seven! She took it out, Gilmore was cutting, stinking, and we were standing with others, just like me, watching through the glass as she took it out. They started cauterizing it, and you could feel through the glass that something had gone wrong. Gilmore had just become an assistant, he was a surgeon now, but then he was an assistant, and he said that he had hit a square, yes, an important one, so he said that we had to lift the patient up and take a look.

Emily keeps her eyes on Harmon – the resident sits with his leg tucked under him, and the cigarette, which he had already pulled from behind his ear, flickers in his fingers like a coin.

– So they got him up, woke him up, you know, right? There were six of the younger guys standing around, watching, and the anesthesiologist, and the surgeon, and Clark, and everyone was standing there, and the patient just started to break out – he was all jammed up, panicking, screaming, so he was screaming, he grabbed his arms – and he broke away. And the nurse, who was supposed to give him an injection to calm him down, did not do it, because she thought that he could not. He's got an open brain, you know, what could have happened, you know, Johnson, that's what she thought. In fact, nothing would have happened if she had calmed him down, but then, look, he broke loose and knocked out a pin, you know, a fastening pin. And Clark was standing there with the electrode, and he couldn't remove it, and Gilmore was busy holding the clamp. There was a lot of blood, you couldn't see it, a lot, a lot! It flowed everywhere, even on the walls, can you imagine? So the pin fell out, Gilmore jerked, and Clark followed him. And then it was all a blur – they burned some important center, the square where the seven centimeters were, and that was it, he couldn't get up anymore. So Clark was sued right away, saying she was a lousy surgeon, Gilmore, too; the whole staff went there, all together; they all got to know each other, Kemp and Gilmore, and Neil and them, too; Ray stood up for them, saying it was not their fault that the nurse had given the wrong drugs before the operation, and then she didn't know what to do, but she was different, a completely different person, yeah. Of the six people who were there, they all got fired, so. All the junior staff, yeah. And Mel was in charge after that, yes, in charge, she was the only one who had any sense at the time, yes. It was such a mess, yes, a mess, a real mess. Nobody understood a thing, everybody was shouting, only Clark and Gilmore were standing there, holding their instruments.

– After that," the cigarette disappears into his breast pocket, "Clark doesn't trust anybody. And now Ray's dead, there's no telling what's gonna happen to her, he was like a father to her, everyone knows that, yeah. He saw something in her that nobody else saw, you know, Johnson? It happens, yes, somebody sees you better than others, yes, Johnson, remember that, write it down, sketch it out. If you meet one, take care, yes, you see, but Clark didn't. – He sighs.

There is almost no one left in the room, the sounds fade, the rain stops, and Emily, clutching her fingers in a red mug, presses her lips together.

– I… Thank you," she says on an exhale.

– Drop it. – Harmon stands up, grunting. – I know you won't tell, and yes, you can't promise. Now get your coat on and get to work. Yes," he finishes. – Work. I'm going to sleep now…

* * *

The waiting room is so crowded you could suffocate; the smells of chlorine and blood create a hellish mixture. Doctors and nurses rushed back and forth, paramedics' blue suits flashing, sirens howling from the street. Emily huddles against the wall, missing the gurney with the bloody mess, and then someone pulls her hard and painfully against herself by the collar of her robe.

Emily flails her arms awkwardly, but she doesn't fall, and she hears a low laugh behind her. She turns around and sees Gilmore in his surgical suit, leaning against the wall, chuckling softly; his red hair looks like living fire in the light of the cold lamps.

– What's going on? – Emily spins around herself, trying to look around: gurneys everywhere, the air filled with groans, someone shouting into the phone. In the midst of this chaos, the relaxed Gilmore is a veritable island of calm and serenity.

– Southwark Bridge," explains the surgeon. – One decided to go around traffic, another was showing his lady a nighttime drift, and a third braked too sharply. Some of the cars are in nothing, a few are still swimming, the rest are here. Well, the ones who need us.

The loudspeakers explode with names and operating room numbers; Emily hears Clark's last name, and then Davis, the second surgeon, apparently called in from his day off, whizzes past.

– Go to trauma, Johnson," Gilmore says, still too calmly. – Clark's waiting for me.