Blues and Greens

“Miguel! Miguel, can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can hear you”

He knew he was moving. Rolling. Or maybe, floating? He knew he should be feeling every lump and bump of this ride on the 70 year old linoleum. He just doesn’t know how he knew.

“Why can’t I feel anything, What is happening to me??” Miguel felt a familiarity, He knows he knows what’s happening, but his emotions are frozen. His nervous system is absent.

“Migueeeel, open your eyes!”

“I am!” He lied. but he was trying. He couldn’t.

So many voices, beeps, alarms. Sounds of IV poles clanking over the lumps and bumps of the old ER flooring. Ultrasound and Xray machines being rolled in behind them. Orders being called out.

“Miguel squeeze my hands. Miguel. Squeeze. Can you move your fingers? Wiggle your toes. Give me a thumbs up Miguel.” So many commands, so many voices.

“Loss of consciousness at the scene, GCS 3, exposed brain matter”

GCS 3? Miguel thought Glascow Coma Scale. 3 is the worst. “This must be a dream”

“No, are you sure??? a 3??” Another voice exclaimed with complete dread.

“NOOOO I am not a GCS 3 I am here!’ Miguel mentally fought his body to respond, to be in pain, to move, to do anything. He begged himself to wake up.

“Jojo! Is it true, are you sure? Is that OUR Miguel?!?” He knew that voice.

“Yes, he is still wearing his scrubs Mel, Hes wearing his damn scrubs, and look”

“Oh no his tattoos..”

“Part of them, the rest are gone.” Silence. The clank of instruments, the beeps and alarms continued, but the multiple voices stopped. No one said a word. That is when he knew, in fact he was not in a dream.

"Wake up man, please open your eyes" As he slowly obeys the command, blurry light greens, blues, and whites appeared before him. it seems to move towards him, and then away. Then it moves again. He tries to focus. No, not light green Miguel thinks. And that isn’t green. It is brown. Wait no its both. Green, and brown, but different shades of green. Maybe. “So pretty” Miguel’s thoughts trailed off those blues as those greens faded to black.

“Miguel, open your eyes. Miguel?"

"Come on Miguel. OK then, Miguel, I am going to help you now, ok?” The deep male voice asked with uncertain hope.

Cold pressure from gloved fingers. One just below his left eyebrow, another laid on the sac under his eye. The pressure intensified as those gloved digits spread his lids apart, exposing the discgonjugated eye ball. Suddenly another hand raises a small, blue stick, he hears a distinct Click, like the click of a ball point pen. Without warning, an extreme bright glaring light violates his field of vision. It hurt. But not from the outside.

Miguel, by instinct, slams his eye shut, protecting it from the invasion. He feels the same routine being done to his other eye. The fingers, the pulling apart of his thin, tired eyelid. He hears the same click, and flinched, anticipating the light. But nothing. He realized he doesn’t see the hand, the pen, the invading, flooding light. Nothing. Its just dark on that side. Both tasks were repeated. The flooding of light on the left. The darkness on the right. He senses the man back off quickly.

“Reactive but barely, Right side is blown”

A phrase he has heard hundreds of times.

“Now can you squeeze my hand? Come now, squeeze. Wiggle your toes Miguel come on give me a wiggle” Miguel was trying, he shut his eyes tight and moved his feet as hard as he possibly could. He has never summoned his body to react as hard as he did now.

“Alright! good job sir!”

Miguel knew that lie, as he had used it on others thousands of times before. Miguel tried to open his eyes, tried to speak, and tried to reach out and beg for help. He slipped away again. The voices faded out.

“Miguel?” A soft woman's voice. This voice was so different from the rest. He knows this one.

He opened his eyes again. The blue-green-tan is more clear now. There are shapes. It is also moving. Almost like a wave. The greens and blues swimming around were soothing somehow. Miguel summons the strength up to get his mind to work again “maybe its windy in here. no, we are inside. Why is it moving?” Suddenly it was swept aside along with a clinking.. He knew that sound, but could not remember how. Someone came into the space near the head of his bed. Held his hand tightly.

That hand. The soft, tan, feminine hand. He knows those hands. Miguel tried to follow the neatly manicured, baby pink nails to their fingers, noted the darker shade of skin across the knuckles, to the wrist and saw dark, navy blue sleeves.A soft navy blue cuff led to a blues sleeve, same color different material. A very familiar blue, one that made him feel safe. As his gaze crept up the familiar blue trail, it landed on more of that tan skin. With some black, softly frizzy curls near a feminine ear. The lobe of this ear was loops of gold. Gold earrings. I have seen those before. She always wears those things Miguel thought. He reached out to grab them but everything was swallowed away by dark.

“Miguel!”

Miguel eyes opened immediately

“Hiiii MIGUEL!!!” The voice was excited, and happy, almost thrilled.

“Is he awake? " He heard a male voice say from a distance.

Miguel wondered again why this mans voice also comforted him.

Miguel felt that small, strong hand on his wrist. “Miguel, it is me, Mel!” Your here in the ER with us Miguel, you are ok. Look at me!”

Miguel again tried to see who was touching his arm. He wasn’t sure if he actually felt it, but he could see, something.

That deep dark blue sleeve, the black hair, the pretty, sparkly earrings came into focus. The face. He knew that face. Her eyes, big brown eyes, the eyebrows, thin, almost look like they were tattooed on, with wisps of whatever eyebrows she had left poking trough the ink. Her eyes, a pretty brown, but aged, the way that once deep dark beautiful brown eyes fade into a weaker version. The eyes looked sad. No, they felt sad. He had looked into those eyes hundreds of times. But not like this.

“Energy” The word popped in his head “Eyes give off an electrical energy” Miguel remembered.

“Why are you so sad???” He wanted to yell.

He tried to focus more. The face moved away as the woman stood up straight. Still holding his hand.

“There you are, my friend! Stay with us a little while longer ok?” She pleaded.

"That's my Mel!!" He knew who she was now! She was his co-worker, his friend. She is a whole 5 foot. She is from the Philippines, came her on her own at 19 years old, in the 90s during the extreme nursing shortage. The US healthcare system would have collapsed if not for the massive influx of foreign nurses. She was the hardest damn worker hes ever known yet she still has one of the happiest hubby and bunch of kids he’s ever known.

He looked down at his hand. His left arm was limp. Resting on top of a stack of this pillows covered with plain white pillowcases with something in grey. That dull, ugly grey. Logo style writing. He couldn’t read it but knew it was the logo of the place he was in. Where he worked. But he couldn’t remember the name. He tried to find his right hand. Tried to look at his arm. There was nothing. He tried with all of his energy to see if it was under the plain white sheet covering his wrecked body. Nothing. he lowered his gaze as much as he possibly could and saw the bunch of bloody blue towels covering his shoulder. The space where his arm should be was gone. The blood mixed into the threads of the blue towels have turned purple.

“Miguel, its ok Miguel, " He hears Mel again. He watches intently as she pulls the crisp, cold white sheet over pile The blended shades of old blood. He wanted her to see that he could see her. But she kissed the top of his head and walked away.

“What happened to me?”

He faded out.

“MIGUEL! MIGUEL OPEN YOUR EYES”

Dr Shai. "One of my favorites. If anyone can save me, she can"

She laid one hand on his only arm. Bent closer so she could examine him. “Can you squeeze my fingers” she asked him She placed two fingers hand laid over the space between thumb and index fingers, so her finger tips were nestled just slightly in the palm of his hands. He again ordered his extremities to move, but they ignored him. Again,

He could make out the desperation on her face. Her blushed cheekbones, the soft mauve colored powder glistening as it met her dark eyeliner perfectly enhancing her honey colored eyes. Her eyes were beautifully sad, like Mel’s were. She never looked at Miguel like this. She was always polite, but, as many young female surgical residents, she felt she could never let her soft side show. She rarely would make eye contact with anyone, much less let anyone see this amount of hopelessness.

She pulled away, turned around to tell someone, “Call his family, there’s not much time”

He struggled to open his eyes and saw a blur of black, shadows of people sitting alongside him. He made out a huge rectangle shaped frame, with nothing but bright light nestled inside of it. His eyes drew downwards to the lower half of the window. Someone was there, someone he thought he must know. Holding a smaller someone on their lap. The smaller someone was holding a smaller, glittery rectangle and was staring intently into the device.

“Device”

He could see the blue eyes of the person in front of him look up from their own device, their eyes tripling in size, he could tell they were blue. Giant light blue eyes full of so much fear that they turned dark. He remembered the red blur of their car colliding with his. He remembered the black metal that used to be the hood of his vehicle, Crumpling, folding and suddenly shoved into his face like a metal tsunami. He could hear himself scream.

Suddenly a new noise filled his surroundings. Not just a beep beep beep, but a Beep BONG beep BONG beep BONG, multiple cell phones ringing. Voices yelling, getting closer. Another familiar face.

“You are not going ANYWHERE do you hear me MIGUEL???” Dr Shai yelled for a crash cart, ripped off the sheets covering his tube riddled body and slapped ice cold difibrillator pads at his chest. The next time Miguel regained consciousness, or woke up, or whatever the hell it was that was happening to him he felt a different energy in the room. It was hot. Thick. Heavy. He heard multiple voices, he heard many familiar voices. he heard the words:

"Presents as brain dead” “Donation” “Extubation” “Comfort Care”

“I promise I will make sure he is comfortable" He heard a man say He heard sniffles, soft crying. He heard music. Music??

“Sitting on the dock of the Bay” By Otis Redding was playing softly in the background.

He should feel happy. Music always put Miguel in a better mood, He would blast Otis, or Metallica, or Prince on his way to work to put him in a good mood and pump him up for a shift. A shift. Miguel remembered now!!! He worked here. Why is he here, like this, now?

Wait, where did Mel go???

He tried to call out her name, couldn’t move.

Miguel woke up to the presence of a holy man.

“Peace be unto this house….”

“NOOOOOOOOO”

Miguel woke up to Mel standing over him

“Thank GOD!!” “Mel tell them I’m ok, tell them to stop!!” Miguel swore he was talking to her. But she wasn’t listening. He pleaded internally for her to stop and tell him everything is ok. But Mel was busy, attaching some tubing to his IV. Pushing buttons on the pump machine that tubing came from.

Suddenly another figure came into view. "Hey Carl, I am glad you are here today" Mel said quietly.

Carl hugged Mel and told her he was too.

Carl 2.0 they called him, as he was the younger Carl on the respiratory team. “Hey buddy.” Carl rested his hand on Miguel's good shoulder. Gave a squeeze. “We are going to take the tube out now, so your family can see you without it.”

Miguel knew he would never be able to let the room full of people he loved know that he was still there, he could hear them. He knew, that this was it. His good eye scanned the room as far as it could. Rested on the familiar wall of blues and greens and tans.

His spirit surrendered.

Miguel heard Carl ask Mel if the drip started. He knew what the drip was. It . would flow continuously into his IV through the pump. The morphine would ensure he didn’t suffer.

Carl hugged Miguel's good shoulder again, with his gloved hand.

He saw Carl with the clear, hard plastic suction device in hand. Miguel heard the gurgle of the suction. Patients almost always choked, and gagged, sometimes vomited when the breathing tube came out. Miguel understood, that the reflexes to gag and choke as that tube exited his body, just didn’t exist anymore.

To his relief a blurry Mel appeared from behind the shade. She sat on the edge of the bed and wiped dead blood and crusted matter from his ear and neck. Miguel's face gently. Bent over and kissed his forehead.

"Vaya con dios" Go with God. She whispered while mentally shoving her cries back into her chest.

“I will go get your family” she said softly.

There is only silence. No more Alarms. Only the “Whirrr-click” of the machine running his morphine drip was heard.

Miguel’s eyes stared ahead and watched Mel as she swept sea of blues and greens aside and disappeared behind it. Finally it was clear. The hospital curtain. Alternating Repeating patterns of softly shaped leaves, and squares with alternating backgrounds of the same color pallets. Ciel blue, An off-white, and Sage. He felt a warm calm float over him.Miguel felt the morphine start to take him away, but first, a old memory visited the sliver of his consciousness that remained.

It is 25 years earlier. They are looking at the newly remodeled 1st floor hospital lobby.

The linoleum, like the stuff that remains in the ER, had been replaced with vinyl flooring resembling hardwood floors. The wall paper with patterns of leaves tan, gold and sage green falling on a lighter sage green background. Chairs with sage green, olive, gold and tan. Some areas are carpeted with deep forest greens and very small leave patterns. An off white mostly.

Miguel is looks to his left. Standing there is a tall, thin, woman with sharp eyes and dark grey hair pulled tight in a bun. Dressed all in white. His 1st manager. Marilyn. She was an older nurse from the days when syringes were re-used, IV tubes were made of rubber and nurses ran the place. Michelle was shaking her head in disappointment while looking at the fancy new furniture.

Thousands of dollars to tell them that certain shades of browns, blues and greens, and patterns of leaves are supposed to be soothing. She pauses. "Supposedly lowers anxiety levels.” She stuck a cigarette in her mouth, looked at Miguel, and said lets go home”

The curtain got blurry again, Miguel felt extreme peacefulness, and everything went black. Forever.