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Things get biblically weird for a woman working night shift.

Light Bringer

This section of the hospital was old, and so it was the section most plagued with problems. It looked barren and neglected and had an abandoned feel to it. The walls were perpetually in need of repair: peeling plaster, there was an area where a huge hole had been patched and was always leaking tiny trickles of brown liquid. Soon it would be walled off, another connecting entrance would be built. Emery always felt like the place was about to cave in on her. Stuck. Forever.

The floor always felt sticky, as if the last person to clean was in such a hurry they sloshed down a puddle of industrial cleaner and did a cursory swipe with the foam mop.

But the lights were the strangest part of this journey down the hall.

There was no other way to go, unless one went outside the hospital and entered from another door, but that was not practical. The hospital had wings added on over the years, and sometimes they just didn’t connect.

The lights were constantly flickering or would just all completely go out when Emery was on her rounds. Now she knew when it was about to happen, because there would be a low deep hum and Emery would feel her teeth set on edge. Then the lights would surge with brightness and then either flicker for a few seconds, sometimes a full minute, or they would all completely go out in unison. Emery would turn on her phone’s flashlight and guide herself through the dark hall. She knew there were no X-ray machines running, no electrical work being done, because she always went and investigated the rest of the small hospital.

Emery had asked some of her coworkers about it, but they had never seen the lights flicker, or go out. However, they all hated going to the subbasement, down the gloomy hallway and into the small med supply room.

Emery worked night shift, so she was the one who ended up filling this med station machine. Tonight, she only had a few things to take, so she took her small container and headed out. She glanced at the pharmacist, who was Face-Timing his latest girlfriend, and he didn’t even glance up when she opened the door to leave.

Emery put in her headphones, the music blasting. It was the weekend, and the hospital was quiet and deserted. She turned the corner and began to walk down the hall.

She walked past the morgue, pausing at the door. She took out her ear buds, and she listened. The door was locked, and she heard things being moved, arranged. Not empty tonight. She thought of her mother being cut open by a stranger, caring but indifferent, a job to do. Her organs being taken out and weighed. Her blood being drained out by a large vacuum, replaced with pink fluid. The flash of silver blades against soft thin skin, cutting; it made

Emery’s body hurt, and she welcomed the pain, as if this would somehow make her mother forgive her for allowing this to happen. Emery should have just put her in the ground, pristine and finally peaceful. Emery pictured the blood washing into the drainage trap. Emery imagined she drank some molecules of her mother, or when she bathed, parts of her mother were in the water. She finally walked away from the door, continuing down the hall.

She paused. She felt it, starting as a vibration above her. Like she was standing under a transformer. It got louder and louder, then suddenly stopped. The lights went out, and Emery stood in the darkness. She waited.

 She turned around, hoping to see him this time. Before she could only feel him and perceive him as a shadow figure. But now immense hands came to rest on her shoulders. His eyes were not completely visible, but she could see tiny pinpoints of light, black flames of eternity.

She saw the outline of the wings as they spread out behind him, then enfolded her. She closed her eyes, and in complete darkness, she could see some of what they saw. She couldn’t comprehend or collate these into sensical thoughts. They were flashes of images. Galaxies boiled into life; stars bursting and spewing out neon gases and collecting into new stars, burning with unimaginable intensity. She saw others: some floating, still and calculating, watching. Others streaking around like insane enormous, fiery insects. She felt fear but also wonder and shame and nothingness and eternity. Darkness and light battling each other, limitless and immortal.

Emery opened her eyes. She saw light, then blinked and realized she was staring up at the ceiling. The lights were working again. A voice in her mind spoke softly, but with force: Arise, eat.

She usually bled afterwards, but there was none this time. She saw the medications scattered on the floor. She left them and dressed and walked to the bathroom.

Emery looked in the mirror. Her eyes had two small points of light. She turned off the lights in the bathroom and continued to stare into the mirror. Her eyes shone in the darkness.

That which is born of darkness will bring light.

She felt the floor tremble beneath her feet. It was time to move on.

Copyright 2021 Miranda Maples