The Patient

The Patient

By Shannon Burton

The nurse left work at 5 o'clock, a little later than she usually left. She always had the early shift, but today she had to stay longer because of that last patient... the one who had shown up after not being there for a few months now.

Last time he had been discharged, all the nurses thought he was going to be fine; even the judge said as much. The patient left with a smile on his face, talking about how he was going to go back to his wife and kids and get his whole life back together. Everyone had been so happy for him; but now the only thing everyone thought when they looked at him was horror.

The nurse shuddered at the thought of him first entering the hospital. Some of the other patients were wondering around, some were watching t.v., and still others were waiting for their medication. The nurse was getting ready to leave; and then the screams started. Screams were not uncommon at this place; in fact they were constant. These screams, however, were screams of horror, not the usual screams of the insane.

The nurse ran from her station to a terrible sight and almost could not force herself forward to help. The patient was being held down by three interns, and each person had blood all over them. One of the interns was holding the patient with only one arm because the other arm had lost two fingers. The patient seemed to be chewing something, and the nurse prayed that it was not that interns fingers.

Her prayers were not answered, however, as the patient spit out one of the fingers. She saw his throat move as he managed to swallow the other one. The intern started to silently cry as he left the patient un-attended to salvage his other finger.

"What happened?" the words feeling forced out of her mouth as she stared into the crazed eyes of the patient. His mouth turned into a scary grin, and without the help of the third intern, the patient was able to dive at the nurse and grab her around the neck. The nurse's eyes bulged as the patient started to squeeze, blood dripping from his clothes onto her white uniform.

"Do you see how good I am? Do you see how I went home and took care of my family? I got my life back on track! I got it back!! You helped me so much!" He was now shouting and laughing hysterically in her face, spit flying from his mouth to land on her cheek.

Finally, the rest of the interns, after their shock of him reacting so quickly to grab the nurse, were able to pry the patient off her and wrestle him to the ground. The nurse fell to her knees, gasping for air and holding her throat.

She managed to gasp out, "What did you do? What happened to your wife and kids?"

The patient looked at her with confusion in his eyes and just as the interns shot him with Vicadin the patient said in a quiet voice, "What wife and kids? I don't have a wife and kids..."

The nurse sat in her car, thinking over the night’s events and wondering how long it would be before she forgot them. As she started her car and headed home to her own family, she could not help but wonder what the patient had meant at the end. Did he ever have a wife and kids? Or did he mean that he did not have a wife and kids anymore...