NOAH
Three weeks.
The hospital room smelled like bleach and plastic, a sharp scent that had crawled into the fabric of my clothes days ago and refused to leave.
I had been sitting in the same vinyl armchair for nearly a monthly now. At first, the nurses used to ask me if I needed a blanket, or a cup of water from the cooler down the hall, or if I wanted to use the family waiting area on the fourth floor.
Now they didn't ask anything. I had been here so long that I felt like a piece of the furniture, just another fixture they had to walk around when they came in to check the bags of clear fluid hanging from the metal poles.
My laptop was balanced on my knees, the heat from the battery warming through my trousers. I was working because work was the only thing that had a beginning and an end anymore.
I answered the emails from the main office, filed the weekly expense reports, and took care of the executive liaison duties that kept the whole machine running.
