Sean Lovelace
Out there people were always trying to open the doors of airliners in flight. Then they'd divert to DIA. And of course end up in a police cruiser, then our ER. Ruddy-faced, bleary-eyed men, stinking of vodka and sour sweat. Sometimes a woman, often literally stunned. "Why'd you try the door?" I'd ask them during admit. "I think I was drunk," they'd mutter, head down at their hands, always swollen red, bound tightly by zip tie plastic cuffs. But one day this young lady in a neon green halter top and a short black miniskirt—I'll admit it was distracting—answered dully, "There's some bad men waiting on me when that plane lands." What I didn't know is she had swallowed a condom full of high-grade cocaine. It ruptured. Her eyes widened, then she leapt up, swayed as I stepped back, steadied herself against the exam table, stood entirely still for an instant, and then she died. Which could—perhaps should—be the end of this little story. But that young woman did something spectacular. Or even mystical? I don't know. A way so alien to the masses of us, who fret. Who strut. Who stumble. She died in the right place. At the right moment. Around fellow humans who well understood, who knew intimately the world of secrets, and had quite a few of their own—and who held some real chance of bringing her back to the living.