OHAI Midnight. :B
Yeep, it's late. >___> Essay-writin' to do. It's pretty easy, though, or at least I hope it's as easy as I think and I'm not just screwing myself over. :'D
We had to write an "interchapter" (have you ever read The Grapes of Wrath?) for Hurricane Katrina, in John Steinbeck's style. Mine specifically is from the POV of the hospitals in general, before/during the beginning of the hurricane.
Welcome to my American Literature Honors class. E____E
Figured I'd post it since it's a first-draft and I can explain it away as getting feedback in hopes of getting a good grade. :'D ...that and I'm honestly curious as to what you may think. I've never been overly confident in my writing, but I do it a looooot lately. @___@ So I'd like to think I'm getting better. >______>;
Of course ah heard about the storm; who hasn’?
The questioner shrugs. Mah neighbors cleared the hell out.
Dunno why. ‘Snot like we haven’t gone through storms before.
It’s chatting done out of habit, out of necessity. The clean white walls of the hospital stare the patients down, encourage them to seek out their roommate and pass around kids’ names, the baseball season and the ever-dreaded topic of the weather. The nurses, the ones fresh out of their schooling and eager to play the placating hero, smile a little too broadly at everyone who asks them on the updates about the hurricane and tell them that it’s nothing. The older ones, the caps of their scrubs sometimes covering thinning, paling hair, simply go their rounds and walk the line between reassuring and cold with their stoicism.
Outside, the wind has been picking up speed, stray trash and any newspapers left on doorsteps dancing down the street in lieu of the usual cars. The patients with the beds by the windows can’t help but glance over anytime something hits the glass, which is far too often.
What the hell do you know; weather reporter was right this time. ‘Sa helluva storm so far.
Ya haven’t seen nothin’ yet.
The younger patients, the ones in there for swallowing one quarter too many or getting that one inch too close to the edge of the roof, stare unashamedly out the windows. The tree they usually climb is bent in the gale, the proud trunk reached nearly double to scrape its branches against the asphalt. In the gathering dark the huge, hulking form of it is spattered with bright orange, the rainwater on the leaves reflecting one of the street’s few still-working lamps.
There’s a sudden commotion in a nearby room, a particularly loud gusting of wind before a shattering sound makes it unforgiving way along one side of the hospital. Droplets of rain and broken glass jettison through the ruined windows and sparkle along the scrubbed floor.
Shit, it got my arm!
C’mon, start rolling the beds into the hallway!
Used to maneuvering sedated patients between the O.R. and their personal rooms, the younger nurses are no longer smiling, hurriedly dancing around one another in an attempt to get all the patients out of the room without bashing the beds against one another. The senior nurses know to either ignore the accusing voices of the bed-ridden patients or to calmly explain it to them while never pausing in wheeling them to their new destination. Outside, the trees are now bobbing with the changing directions of the wind, pushed to the extreme in one direction and then another, growing weaker with each new contortion.
Am I bleeding?
Not much - you’ll be fine.
Can’t fuckin’ believe they didn’t think of the windahs breakin’ earlier. Ain’t they s’posed to be prepared for this sorta thing?
Now they’re part of a large gathering in the hall, the squares of their beds draped in white, the easiest thing to see in the dark that’s settled after a fuse blew. Or maybe the power line just went down; their neighbor’s not too sure on what he heard the nurse say. Dammit, some help you are.
Hell, you don’t know either.
The smaller patients look about, intrigued by the concept of adults that don’t have answers. Which of course is different from just not saying the answers; this time, they can tell that Mom’s not just too busy to explain. They busy themselves with exploring the sight of the other patients in the hall, getting to examine the injuries they’d noticed on their way in and were scolded for staring at; their parents are too busy all having the same dead-end conversation with their spouse to mind. One patient has a broken arm, held up in a splint and suspended from a metal arm thrust over his bed. The metal doesn’t move, but his arm lists to the side in its hammock whenever he shifts to get news from a different person. Hey, that man’s arm looks like that tree outside, don’t it?
It’s bobbin’ just like it!
The mother finally catches on, eyes darting between the children and what they’re staring at. Stop lookin’ at that man like that. What’d I tell you about starin’?
Sorry, mom. And the children huddle back together, gossiping about the man and stealing glances when they can before finding a more interesting injury to gawk. The younger nurses worm their ways through the maze of the beds, cautious in their cleaning of any wounds from the glass. The elder ones stand towards the side, doling out the gauze to the newer ones calmly, exchanging occasional glances with any of the older patients.
It’s jus’ another storm. We’ll be fine.