Midnight ICU

Chief enters the Halls of Pain

Darkened hallways whisper in the Midnight ICU.

What started as an urgent medical call ended with lessons in physics and gravity: a fire truck tumbled end over end to end with Chief face down in a grassy field, his Son kneeling over him. The Helicopter carried Chief away, and we chased him westward through sunset skies.

The chaos of the Emergency Room gives way to the quiet voices and murmured prayers of the Intensive Care Unit; they harken the listener to hurry by, lest they hear too much to bear. The fragility of the Human condition is enunciated in hushed tones:

• Lungs: Collapsed

• Ribs R 2-12: fractured

• Ribs L 6-9: fractured

• Vertebrae T-12: fractured

• Femur L: fractured

How are you even alive?

We all know the answer to this question: it was Sweet Baby Jesus, come to save him. But the Miracle of this Moment does not spare us the reality of the next -

these are the Halls of Pain.

I enter the cave where we’ve crawled to tend his wounds. Nurses and Doctors bustle, their hands girded for war against Trauma. Tubes and wires are their weapons; Healing is wrested from the hands of Death, only to be beaten back the next round.

Two steps forward, one step back

Victories are won in millimeters, tiny screws tightened to knit flesh and bone; losses are wrought in units, liters of blood and meds.

One step forward, two steps back

In the rooms, hisses and beeps of machines replaces twitters and chirps of birds; perching in metal trees, they sing the song of the Midnight ICU…

Earthbound between life and death, Chief straddles the line, Walker between Worlds in the Halls of the Midnight ICU.