Reverse Course

Think of one dramatic event from your life and write the event backwards.

I sleep.  He tucks me into bed, saying he'll join me soon.  She leaves, promising to be back if we need anything.  They take me home.  I'm glad he wasn't alone.  My husband is there, and my best friend.  I do wake up.  The lights are very bright in the OR, but I don't notice them for long before the darkness returns.  He kisses me.  She brings him to me.  Someone tries to tell me I can't- the other nurse, tone brooking no argument, says she'll find him herself.  I want to see my husband, I plead.  I might not wake up.  I have to sign forms saying I understand I might not wake up. Someone draws him away, to wait for me in the recovery room.  The kind EMT wheels me down corridor after corridor, my husband walking beside me.  They have to take me in for surgery.  We've just pumped a lot of very cold fluid into you.  You will be, he says.  The EMT asks if I'm cold, but I'm not.  I know she will come, so he doesn't have to be alone.  I tell him to update to my boss, and tell my best friend.  I'm okay.  It's okay, I say, voice thready.  I smile.  I open my eyes, and it's my husband.  I can feel the love radiating from the hand, and I think, what a compassionate nurse.  I turn my face to the touch, nuzzling into it.  Things start to come back, but I am so lonely- and then a warm hand touches my bare shoulder, just where it meets the neck.  I am at peace.  Everything is fading, and I think, at least they know I love them.  Textures of rough cloth and smooth cold metal against my naked skin, the slither of tubing, the pierce of many needles.  It's dark- but there is movement in the darkness.  Maybe not entirely lost, tho'- I think I hear my husband screaming at them to do something.  I slump over, consciousness fleeing.  She passes me paperwork to fill out.  I tell the disinterested nurse that I am hemorrhaging.  We make it to the head of the line.  I am feeling weaker.  It seems so unfair to me, to have to wait in line at an emergency room, but I don't want to make trouble.  We have to wait in line.  He wheels me in while my husband parks the car.  We pull up to patient-unloading, and an orderly asks me if I want a wheelchair: I do.  We go, and I text my boss to tell him I may or may not be in tomorrow.  My husband returns home, and I tell him we need to go to the hospital.  I call the nurse-line: they tell me to get to the emergency room.  I'm regretting sending him to the store.  I'm bleeding more- and maybe it's not nothing.  I tell him to go ahead and go to the store.  My husband is worried, but I tell him it's probably nothing; it's not at all uncommon to have bleeding after a miscarriage.  I am bleeding.