Didn't Get Frazzled by David Z Hirsch

Author:David Z Hirsch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: medical, medical school, medical humor, medical story, medical student, medical fiction, hospital drama, medical training, medical theme, medical ebooks
Publisher: David Z Hirsch

In retrospect, calling April that night may not have been the brightest move, but I really needed to talk to her. While most nights I called Michelle because she cheered me up, my sullen mood had induced an irrepressible urge to chat with my dysthymic ex-girlfriend. For years, April had been my go-to person for life’s quandaries, and old habits die hard.

As it happened, this one died a particularly horrendous death. The colossal void between the cheerful way she answered the telephone and her subsequent, beleaguered “Hi, Seth.” threw me off kilter. What I had hoped would be an enlightened discussion between two people who kinda-sorta-maybe still cared about each other collapsed into a sputtering downward spiral of irritation and acrimony. After a few minutes, I struggled just to maintain relevance.

“Remember when you and I sat on the edge of the bathtub, and we checked your urine to see if you were pregnant?”

I listened to her silence and closed my eyes, imagining her dressed in her cheerful sunflower T-shirt and cut-off jean shorts. She glowed the way she had one sunny afternoon when we frolicked with the ships and street performers at South Street Seaport, racing against the sun, hoping the day would never end. I basked in her warmth.

Hello, April. Today I met a morbidly obese woman, and I pounded on her sternum, forced air into her lungs, and shot 360 joules of electricity through her body. Turns out, I was the one person in the room who didn’t know she was already dead, so I guess the joke’s on me.

April exhaled directly into the receiver, exhibiting the weary respiration of the interminably vexed. “I wish you wouldn’t bring up old stuff. That was a very long time ago.”

Her gentle features stiffened. She twisted her shoulder away from me and faded into nothing.

“Yeah, it was a long time ago.”

“Look, I’m expecting Dennis to come over any moment now. Can we talk another time?”

“Sure, another time.” I tried to picture that cold day in hell.

She hung up. I listened to the dial tone for several minutes, too demoralized to extend my arm. My mind shifted back to the last kind thing she had said to me, the last night April and I spent together at our apartment when she had cited the Casablanca story from college to relate how much she used to enjoy being around me and how much she would miss no longer being able to spend time with me. Now, just five months later, that seemed a lifetime ago.

I knew I should to let go, but I couldn’t. A rage surged through me, and I needed both hands to hang up the phone. In an attempt to calm myself, I focused on Casablanca and imagined a new scene, appearing after the closing credits, when Bogie tries to maintain his friendship with Ingie and it all goes south.

“Hey, remember me?” Bogie says. “I sure came up with some great lines that night at the airport, didn’t I? Listen,

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