Kat Fink

Sue

The girl standing in front of her in the checkout line had stopped unloading her groceries. Sue gave a strong ahem to get the girl moving, but she seemed distracted by the news report on the screen above the cashier’s head. Sue rolled her cart closer to the girl in another passive attempt to get the girl’s attention. She had things to do today, and she couldn’t wait on yet another screen-obsessed teenager to wake up from their stupor to finally acknowledge that the universe did not, in fact, revolve around them. The girl didn’t budge an inch, so Sue looked up at the screen to see what was so interesting that it was worth holding up everyone’s day. Sue hardly made it through the report before she abandoned her groceries and shoved her way through the door of the corner market. 

She could walk the path to the hospital in her sleep; she’d gone there almost every day for the last two years. The doors slid out of her way, and she took the elevator up the five floors, speeding past the front desks, attendants, and rooms of sleeping people with tubes flowing out of their mouths. Each person she encountered only gave her a passing glance. They either knew why she was hastening through the word and the look on Sue’s face was keeping them from trying to impede her efforts, or they simply just didn’t care. What was the point of decorum and procedure in light of what they were all facing? It was this passivity that was urging Sue to pick up the pace. If some of the people in the hospital became too apathetic to work, many of these patients wouldn’t last a day. That was unacceptable…and unimaginable. 

She stopped at the doorway and took a deep breath when she was met with the beep of a heart monitor and the soft wooshing of a breathing machine. She didn’t know how long she stood there before the doctor came to stand beside her. 

“Is it real?” Sue asked the statuesque woman clad in a white coat, her brown hair pulled back tightly into a ponytail that only brought her sharp chin and cheekbones into higher focus. She had Sue locked in her gaze, and even without facing her, Sue could see there was both compassion and a threat in her eyes. She’s worried I’m going to be a problem. Sue didn’t know if she would be or not. 

“Yes. We’ve wondered for some time what was going on. There have already been some deaths brought in from it. No warning, their hearts just…stopped.”

Sue had a vision of the hospital being overrun by frantic people trying to find a cure. She clutched the door frame. 

“What’s going to happen?” 

“When the screaming masses come to our doors?” she asked. “Nothing. The truth of the matter is. Most of us won’t even be here to greet them.” 

Her fears had been valid, then. Sue was suddenly conscious of the noise around her. This ward, a place for people to hang somewhere between life and death while machines tried to keep their bodies going, was usually so quiet. Peaceful even. Now, there was a buzzing energy. Whispers were running across the hall, someone was crying, and not a few staff members were packing their belongings into stray boxes at the central desk. 

“They’re just going to leave them here?”

“It’s the end of everything, Sue. Surely you can’t expect them to stay. We’re in the same boat as everyone else on this floor. We were living on borrowed time and now that time is running out. They just want to be with their loved ones before it’s over.”

“And what about our loved ones? Those of us who love the people being kept alive here?”

“The machines will run themselves, but there are things only people can do, and… I don’t know how to say this to you, Sue. But, soon, there won’t be enough people to do those jobs. These people will be kept alive by machinery, and they will suffer when there is no one left to change their meds. To shift them so they don’t get bedsores. To change their catheters. It will get ugly, and they will get very sick very quickly.”

“Why do I feel like you’re pleading a case for me? Isn’t it your calling to help these people? Do no harm. Isn’t that the pretentious slogan of the doctor?”

“It is Sue, but the time is coming that I will have to pick and choose the ones I help. I’m going to stay until the end comes because, you’re right, this is my life. But I can’t help them all, and it’s only postponing the inevitable. In a very real way, I am asking…” she sighed and pinched her nose. When she cleared her throat to speak again, she whispered, “I am pleading with you. Because if you don’t make a decision soon, you’re asking me to harm others.”

“You’re asking me to kill her.”

“I’m asking you to let her go for the people in this hospital who are still present. Those who still have conversations to have, experiences to collect, before it’s all over.”

Sue nodded. It seemed like an eternity passed as they stood in that doorway, but Sue couldn’t seem to muster any strength to argue or conceed. She just stood there, even as the doctor gave her shoulder a squeeze and murmured something about giving her time. Sue wanted to laugh. Time for what? Time to mull over the decision to kill the love of her life? Time to accept that the doctor was right, the conversations had all been had, their experiences together were already collected? There was no time left for any of them, but Sue had been staring down the barrel of loneliness for much longer than most. She wasn’t afraid of what was coming for her because, in her heart of hearts, Sue knew everything about her had died two years ago, and this hospital, this reality, was just a purgatory. The last bit of effort, of scratching and kicking, until she could finally go home to her love, whose body was within reach but whose mind had locked itself into a place where no one could follow.  

The doctor was right, there were other marriages in this building that were still alive, still breathing on their own. For the last two years, Sue’s marriage had been kept alive with machines and memories. And now, the memories alone would have to be enough to keep Anne living for a little while longer. 

Sue took her wife’s hand for the last time and, in whispers, told the story of their life together. When she was done, she let her go.