Free Red Light by J. D. Glass Page B

useful.”
    Debbie finally peered up from her chart. “Great, then. Bed five, over there.” She pointed. “Get his vitals.”
    “Will do,” I said, and hustled over to bed five.
    Bob and the rest of the instructors had been prepping us for this. If we were on a rig, we’d take vital signs and get an idea of the paperwork everyone had to fill out, the PCRs—patient care reports. If we were in the emergency room, we’d also measure and monitor vital signs, wheel patients around to X-ray and such, and if it got really busy? Help the triage nurse.
    So with those duties in mind, I wasn’t prepared to meet Mr. Wheeler—his name was written on the bag on the hospital tray table in front of him, in big, black Magic Marker letters: Mr. Wheeler.
    “Hi, Mr. Wheeler,” I said as I walked in, “I’m Tori Scotts and I’m—” I stopped cold. This wasn’t Mr. Wheeler anymore. This man lay with his head back and eyes open, eyes that had the strangest cast. Before instinct prompted me to touch his hand, I knew. He was still warm, but Mr. Wheeler was dead, very dead, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Did Debbie really want me to take his vital signs? Did people do that in a hospital setting, just in case or something?
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Wheeler, I’ve got to find a nurse,” I said to the dead man. He couldn’t have been dead long, and what if something was there, like a soul or something, and it could hear? “But I’ll be right back,” I told the corpse. I felt a little stupid, but what if, just in case… Besides, I believed that whether or not some ephemeral, ethereal something existed, it would be very sad if a person left the planet disregarded and disrespected.
    I walked back to the station, but Debbie was gone.
    “Um, what am I supposed to do with the dead guy?” I asked the first passing nurse.
    She stopped and stared at me a moment, then sighed, obviously exasperated. “This way,” she snapped out. “Judy!” she called as we hurried down the corridor between bits of mechanical parts and stretchers. “I need a morgue kit!”
    Like magic, one flew at her head, and she snatched it out of the air as she hurried over to bed five with me behind her. “We need to strip him and zip him,” she said as she pulled the curtain back around.
    “Huh?”
    She opened the kit. “Take off his shoes and socks, and after we undress him, we’re going to cross his hands and feet,” she explained as I carefully unlaced a well-worn black oxford, “and we’ll put him in this.” She held up a white plastic shroud with a zipper that ran along its length. I’d seen them in class because every rig carried at least one morgue kit.
    “Hey, Mr. Wheeler,” I said as I took his shoes off, “it’s Tori again. I’m taking your stuff off, and we’re going to put it in this bag for your family.”
    I made sure I had gloves on before I took off his socks—dead or no, socks can be gross. I glanced up to see the nurse give me the eye as I continued to talk to the corpse.
    I knew, because of all my classes, we weren’t supposed to believe in such things as God or spirit. Everything was accident and evolution and that was it, no God, no one pulling any strings, but what if there was more? I was rather embarrassed, because I couldn’t really let that spiritual sense go completely. I knew it was very unscientific, and one of my professors had said that to even think that there might be a God or some such thing was very ignorant, still, what if? And if there wasn’t, then no big deal; I was just talking to the inanimate like people talk to the television. And if there was, well…better to err on the side of compassion.
    “Well,” I asked her as she efficiently stripped off his shirt, “what if he’s, like, listening or something somewhere, you know?”
    I looked up to see her smile at me across Mr. Wheeler. “That’s not a bad idea, kid,” she said, “it’s not a bad idea at all.” She started to talk with him