The Beautiful Game

Chapter Twenty Nine - Lou

I'm exhausted.

Not like, wow that was a hard spin class exhausted. More like, it hurts to think, blinking is an effort, and I can feel every aching bone in my body exhausted. Plus, I click now. My body actually makes clicking noises when I stand up. I'm almost twenty one years old and I click and creak like a wizened oak tree!

Between college, placement, and the coffeehouse; I was running on fumes.

Damn you Simmons.

Damn you and your brilliance.

The ER was everything. It's been a month and of course, I'm still a lowly minion, running around, fetching, and carrying for everybody, but I had expected that. However, I got to witness moments of sheer genius.

Yesterday, I saw a bedside Thoracotomy. The patient had a traumatic car accident, and was bleeding profusely into his chest cavity, and they just... cut into it. Unlike the chaos of cheesy medical dramas, filled with shouting and sexual tension, there was merely a strange sense of calm in the room.

Deep breath. Sharp scalpel. Cut. Blood.

My eyes were bugging out of my head the entire time.

I'm currently slumped over the counter at Burnt Toast, my head deep within my medical journal reading about the procedure, and regardless of my recent espresso, the words are still blurring into one another. 

This doesn't feel like my Elle Woods preparing for Harvard moment; this felt more like I was on a Japanese bullet train, with a first class ticket to burnout. Or murder.

Who knows? This level of exhaustion, I'm more likely to steal the scalpel and stab it into my own eye to get some time off.

Well, perhaps not my eye. But, some slight maiming, I'd only need a week or so. Brightside, I could get some suture practise.

I'd dodged Alex's facetimes the past couple of weeks, thankfully he'd been  understanding because of my work placement; but honestly, I couldn't cope with overbearing older brother act right now.

He'd spot the eye bags a mile off and the next thing you know, Noah and Josh would be knocking down the door to my apartment to kidnap me home for an intervention. They'd drag me along on one of their fishing trips, show me their entire camera roll and lasagne would be coming out of my ears.

I'd just have to try and find a way to switch off. An email alert pops up on my phone and I check it.

*Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Science building will be closed for the next two days. All labs, lectures and study rooms are cancelled. We apologise for the inconvenience. Email your tutors for extra information.*

I read the message twice before contacting Simmons' office.

"I have no extra information." Is how he answers the phone, despite my self-pitying state, it makes me laugh.

"What did you do?" His smoke filled voice chuckles as he registers who's calling.

"It appears there's been some mains flooding due to a blockage, and no before you ask, it had nothing to do with me or what happens after my morning coffee." I'm still laughing into my phone as the last customer prepares to vacate the coffee shop.

It's Joe, an elderly regular who tips his hat at me as he picks up his walking stick.

I quickly scramble off the stool to open up a glass container, reaching in to grab the last flapjack of the batch; I walk to the front door, opening it up for him and handing him the flapjack on the way out. He puts his free wrinkled hand over his heart and winks, graciously accepting the flapjack and heading out.