A Patient's Room: A Short Story

His howl strikes me like a clap of thunder, reverberating from my ears down to the bottom of my stomach and prompting glances from all corners of the Cardiac Care Unit. His face is worn—a map of wrinkles carved deep into his skin—and he is dying. I dash behind the head nurse, keeping pace as we rush to his aid. “He really needs someone to talk to,” she reveals, as we enter the patient’s room. The face before me is petrified. As I pull up a chair, his hands shoot up, his eyes fill with fear, and he cries: “Aiuti signor! Perché devo andare?” While we sit but a foot apart, a language barrier sets us half a world away from one another. His arms, trembling, strain to reach even the pitcher sitting at his bedside, and I leave the room to refill it on his behalf. As the water trickles from the cooler, I quickly translate his earlier remark on my phone—and my heart sinks. Staring back at me from the stiff, lifeless screen is the translation: Help me; why do I have to go? His fears swarm my thoughts and I rack my brain, probing for anything I can do to help …show more content…
I keep pace of his account the best I can, and although I am unable to fully comprehend every word, we establish a connection that transcends accents and vocabularies. The intensity with which he recalls his childhood and his family knows no bounds, and I reciprocate as best I can, consoling him with an open heart and mind, being an ear to which he can tell his story and unburden himself. I discover that, contrary to what I sought upon my arrival, there were no “magic words” that could be uttered to diffuse the slew of complex emotions brimming in the room; the earth does not exist in black and white, and neither do solutions. Rather, it was having the presence to be there and sincerely listen that proved instrumental in helping him attain the comfort that he