Open Heart
Greenman Wood
“Step on it, man, he’s crashing!”
“ER, we’ve got an unresponsive white male, 45-50 years of age, code blue. CPR in progress,
has been intubated, cardiac drugs administered. The monitor is showing asystole. We’re
inbound to your location, approximately two minutes out…”
___
Michelle told him it was his confidence that drew her in. The way he took her hand without
asking, without hesitance. How he waited until his finger drew up against that most sensitive part
of her wrist, where he could feel her pulse quicken as he looked in her eyes and said, “I know
this, I am certain. We’re going to be together…”
___
They slammed the gurney onto its wheels and ran full speed into the ER; the IV bag waved on its
hook like a semaphore alerting to the emergency. The attending and her team leapt into action, a wellchoreographed ballet of orders, actions, protocols. There was little doubt he was in very good hands.
___
There was little doubt he was in very good hands. Their first real date, at the Armadillo Bar &
Grille up on Abeel Street, was supposed to be just lunch and a get-to-know-ya chat. Instead, it
turned into hours of confidential talk, devastatingly hot flirting and the kind of intimate entwine
of hands and eyes that told them both this was something rare, something to be cherished.
When they discovered their matching dreams; each wanted to buy an old church and convert it
into a living space combined with a music hall, a place where musicians could be encouraged as
they deserved to be. The first seeds as two lives began to grow into one.
___
The monitors all screamed as one.
“He’s gone into Vfib!” one of the nurses yelled.
“ACLS protocols in place. Prepare for defibrillation! Clear!”
The voltage ripped through his chest as his body flopped like a fish out of water.
“Again. Clear!”
Hairs on his chest burned in pungent fetor.
___
Michelle wrote him 100 poems. The sex was otherworldly. The day she made dinner at his
house, he looked at her, hair piled high and thought, “I have found my Madonna, my angel, my
whore, my abbatissa, my goddess…” She said she would never mess this up, how cheating had
Spring 2015
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