DIANE ON SPACE & SOUND

THE DELICATE WALL

[An encounter with sound and all that it evoked, by Diane Sinnott]

It was probably a typical day at the ER at Cal Pacific. Except that I was in it. Lying in a curtained-off room waiting for the morphine to kick in. I had something that was making my head explode. Something I was hoping was nothing; an annoying foreign flu that would leave as quickly as it came.

As the pain drifted away and the morphine worked its magic I could hear the comings of goings of other patients on the other side of the curtain. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them.

My first neighbor was a regular and greeted with affection by a long line of doctors and nurses. Lou was an old black man accompanied by his wife of many years. I could tell they were holding hands by the tenderness in their voices. These two were old pros at this medical business and took the waiting in stride. Eventually his doctor arrived. Lou had a bad ticker and wasn’t having the best day. They chatted amicably as he listened to Lou’s heart. It sounded good but the doctor was going take a couple of tests, just in case.

The x-rays were ordered. And now we just waited the wait of a hundred years. Lou’s wife asked him for a song. His sweet old voice drifted over the curtain and poured over me like honey. Lou sang the blues in the way only people who have lived it can. I drifted off imagining him as a young man on stage with his beautiful wife dancing in the background. I heard his heart beating to the music. Steady and strong. Good news came when I awoke.

Today was not the day Lou’s heart would have its last beat. He wasn’t finished crooning to his wife yet. He’d be back here I knew, in the land of white coats, but I hoped it wouldn’t be for a while.

My next neighbor was Sara. She and her husband lived up near Eureka. They were visiting their daughter for a few days. I was groggy but heard in hushed tones, cervical cancer. The husband and daughter were fussing over her. Sara told them to go run some errands. They left and the doctor soon came in. There was a long silence as he read her chart. I surmised that Sara already had the surgery and the chemo. And whatever else they could throw at a problem that wasn’t going away. She was done with all that now. “On a scale of 1 to 10 how is your pain?” “Eight,” she said and sounded shaky. She had the mean doctor, all morning I heard him being curt with patients and rude to nurses. But he was nice to her. “I’ll call your doctor and we’ll get you comfortable dear.”

When he left, she broke down. Her sobs were long and deep. She must have been holding them in for a long time. I wanted to reach out to her but I respected the thin curtain. After a while she was quiet. By then the husband and daughter had returned and she was cheery. “Yes, I feel much better now.” She lied well. “Now tell me where you have been.” They told her about the endless search for a parking space. The pretty blocks they had traveled, the purse-size dogs they had seen, no detail was too small. The outing also included a trip to the drugstore. We got aisle-by-aisle coverage. I was a castaway on their story and eager to hear it all.

Eventually my test results came back. I had an annoying foreign flu that would leave as quickly as it came. Grateful, I bundled up the mess of me and quietly said goodbye to the fallen comrades I would never meet, Lou and Sara and the ones that would follow. I touched the hem of the delicate wall between us, a humble human blessing that wished them well.