Flash Fiction
The nurse held her hands. Clasped them, really. She caught the whirring, wrinkled, baby-soft hands deftly between two palms like an expert squashing a mosquito.
The graying eyes stopped their aimless rolling and locked onto the pale, crisp face. She clenched her hands but could not find the strength to grip the hands gripping her hands.
“Tell me, ma.”
The resident looked at her.
“Tell me, I want to hear your story. Tell me.”
She gazed into her eyes longingly and soulfully. They seemed to do everything soulfully, these people; everything they did, they immersed themselves in. Then again, they only had so little of themselves left, and oftentimes it was too little for multitasking.
“Tell me, ma, what happened next.”
The nurse crouched down familiarly beside her, her hands still holding hers in a tight clasp, like a heart-shaped locket holding between its halves an old baby picture. She brought her face close to hers and sat with her cheek to cheek.
“But,” the white eyes, myopic and rheumy, rolled back in their tear-lubricated sockets.
“But what, ma?” the nurse smiled her cheek against the resident’s and eased into a more comfortable, more familiar position.
“But why would she leave?”
She glanced at the door from where she had left, hurried and partially disgusted. And then she started bawling.
The nurse faltered, stopped, almost lost footing on the situation, then checked herself and nose-dived into the fallout maneuver.
The fallout maneuver failed.
She kept bawling, the poor old lady.
Only taking breaks to steal reproachful glances at the double sliding doors.
Sometimes, professional love doesn’t cut through grief.
Sometimes, maybe all time, nurses are not the answer.