A flash… A loud bang… Darkness… Darkness…
Finally the darkness began to lift. A voice reached me:
“Emily Thompson, this is the rescuer, something exploded over there.”
Through the pain I felt a hand on my neck. I forced my eyes open with effort. A rectangular pendant engraved with zodiac signs hung before me… the eyes of a woman in a white coat…
“To the operating room!” came a voice right next to me.
My parents came home from work. My mother went straight to the kitchen after glancing into the room where I was doing homework. My father, David, stepped inside and noticed right away that I looked down.
“Tom, what’s the matter?” he asked, patting my head.
“Nothing,” I grumbled, a fourth-grader.
“Come on, tell me.”
“Valentine’s Day is coming soon. The teacher kept us late today and said we had to get presents ready for the girls.”
“So what’s the trouble?” my father smiled.
“We’ve got the same number of boys and girls. She decided who gives to whom,” I sighed hard. “I got the plain-looking one, Emily Thompson.”
“All the girls want a gift on Valentine’s Day, plain ones included,” my father said, trying to talk to me like an adult. “How did she decide? By last names?”
“No, by zodiac signs.”
“How’s that work?” David smiled again.
“By compatibility. Emily is a Virgo, and Taurus matches Virgo best. I’m a Taurus.”
“That’s fine if you match! Grow up and maybe you’ll fall for her.”
My father couldn’t hold back and laughed. My mother, Sarah, rushed in at once:
“What’s going on here?”
“Sarah, go to the kitchen,” my father’s face went stern. “We have a serious talk with our son.”
When she left, I asked in a low voice:
“Dad, what do I do now?”
“Get a gift ready!”
“What kind?”
“Tomorrow at work I’ll make one for your chosen girl.”
“Dad, what gift can you make? You work at the factory.”
“Yes, but in the plating section. We handle every kind of metal coating.”
“I don’t understand, Dad.”
“You’ll see tomorrow!”
The next day my father brought a pendant on a chain, rectangular and looking golden. On one side two zodiac signs were engraved, Taurus and Virgo, and on the other side in small neat letters:
“To my classmate Emily for Valentine’s Day! Thomas.”
It looked so fine! And once my mother tucked it into a plastic bag it looked even better.
Valentine’s Day came. The teacher had no plans for regular lessons. First the class gave her a gift and she thanked them for a long time. Then she told the boys to hand out their presents to the girls.
Everything turned wild. All the boys hurried to their assigned girls. I walked up to Emily Thompson and said what my father had told me:
“Emily, happy Valentine’s Day! Maybe one day fate will bring the Taurus and the Virgo together.”
After the set words I went back to my seat and never noticed how this girl’s heart, the one I thought plain, started beating fast.
Soon Emily’s parents moved to another area and from fifth grade she went to a different school.
I opened my eyes to the white ceiling of the hospital room. I tried to move my arms and legs. Only my left arm worked.
“Where am I?” I said to no one.
There was a clatter and a patient on crutches came to my bed, looked me over and asked:
“You back with us? You’re in the emergency surgery ward.”
“Are my arms and legs all right?” I asked quietly.
“Everything seems to be there,” he said with good news. “You’re just bandaged head to toe.”
“That’s good if they’re all whole.”
A nurse came over and asked gently:
“How do you feel?”
“What happened to me?” I answered with a question.
“Your life is not in danger. Your arms and legs will work. You’ll just have a lot of scars left,” she handed me the phone, already on. “Your mother asked to call when you wake up.”
“Son,” my mother’s voice came through tears.
“Mom, I’m fine,” I tried to sound cheerful. “They said only small scars will stay. I’ll be discharged soon.”
“They wouldn’t let me stay with you overnight. Son, I’m coming now.”
“Mom, don’t get too upset!”
I set the phone down and tried to smile at the nurse.
“Thanks!”
“Well, they won’t let you out soon,” she smiled back. “You’ll be here three weeks for sure!”
“What happened to you?” the roommate asked once the nurse left.
“I’m a rescuer. Oxygen cylinders started exploding at the factory,” I began to remember. “They called us. We got there before the firefighters. The room was huge, three injured inside. We ran in, tanks scattered around, fire in spots. We started carrying the injured out… I was the last one leaving… When I reached the door another cylinder blew… I don’t remember after that.”
“Yeah, you caught it bad.”
“Thomas Harris,” the nurse called. “A coworker is here to see you.”
“Hey, Tom! How are you?”
“Arms and legs are still there!” I answered brightly. “But I can only shake with my left hand right now!”
“Don’t worry about it!”
“What happened after?”
“We were already heading out when it blew. We ran back in and pulled you out… you were covered in blood… doctors were already there…”
“Thanks!”
“Tom, what are you talking about?” my friend suddenly grinned. “They want to put us up for medals.”
“I’ll be out by then.”
“Alright, I’m off. Rounds are coming. The nurse said keep it short.”
My friend had not left when the doctor, a man about forty, came in:
“How are you, hero?” he said, stepping to my bed.
“Fine.”
“Since you’re talking you’ll live. Let me check you over!”
“Did you stitch me up?” I asked.
“No, Emily Thompson. She’ll come the day after tomorrow.”
Two days passed. I had started trying to stand. My legs still hurt badly and my right arm was torn open. There were at least ten wounds across my body. Two on my face when the blast threw me into the door; good I got my right arm up in time. I looked in the mirror. My face was still swollen.
The doctor who had spent five hours sewing me in the operating room two days before was due for rounds today. I felt a little nervous.
Then she came in. Young, slim, wearing glasses that did not hurt her looks, and the white coat suited her well. At twenty-seven I had already been married, but we split after six months over personalities, though the real reason was my ex did not like a rescuer’s pay.
“Hello,” she said and came to my bed.
“Hello. Did you operate on me?”
“Yes,” she smiled. “Something wrong?”
“Let me examine you.”
She leaned over me… Before my eyes the pendant with zodiac signs swung from her neck:
“Emily Thompson!” I called out.
She looked hard at my swollen face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, still not knowing me.
“I’m a Taurus,” I said and pointed to the pendant.
“Tom Harris?” her lips shook. “You still remember me?”
“Of course, Emily,” I said, laying my hand on hers as tears showed in her eyes.
“Sorry,” she took a tissue and wiped her eyes. “I never thought we’d meet this way.”
She did not come back to my room that day. But I already knew her schedule matched mine: day shift, night shift, two days off.
I did not want to look helpless in front of her. All the next day I tried walking in the room by holding the beds, and a couple times I made it into the hall by leaning on the wall.
Evening. The daytime doctor left. The new shift arrived, you could tell from the talk in the hall. Rounds were next…
Suddenly shouts and quick steps in the corridor. That happens when a new patient arrives.
It was ten o’clock. The nurse came in and turned off the light. But I could not sleep. Long after midnight footsteps sounded in the corridor, then stopped, and in the quiet I felt more than heard someone crying out there. I got up and went carefully into the hall.
My former classmate sat at the nurses’ desk, head on her hands, crying. I walked over and put my good hand on her shoulder.
“What’s wrong, Emily?”
She stood and pressed against my shoulder.
“I operated on a woman hit by a car,” she said, voice breaking. “I did everything possible… She’s in intensive care now but she won’t make it. She has two children… her husband is with her in the room…”
“Calm down, Emily.”
“I’ve been a surgeon for three years and still can’t get used to people dying.”
“Easy now. That’s the job. In five years I’ve seen plenty of deaths too, but we’ve saved many lives,” I sighed. “That’s why my wife left. She said I come home not myself and don’t earn enough. But I always bring home forty, enough to live on.”
“Same with me,” she looked at my face. “Guys look at me like I’m crazy. I’ve never been married, still live with my parents like a kid.”
“Come on, we’re only twenty-seven, life is still ahead.”
“No, Tom, we’re already twenty-seven.”
“Emily Thompson, her pulse is dropping,” a nurse shouted as she ran out.
“Sorry!” Emily rushed to intensive care.
I could not sleep that night. In the morning the nurse gave me my usual shot.
“Is the woman from last night’s surgery alive?” I asked, surprising even myself.
“Alive, but in very serious condition.”
Three weeks passed. The wounds on my body had closed. We saw each other on her shifts, and I felt pulled toward her more and more. But the emergency surgery ward is not the place for personal talk.
During one morning round the male doctor said:
“I’m discharging you today,” he smiled. “From the hospital. Go straight to your clinic and they’ll decide how much more sick leave you need.”
“I can pack!”
“Yes, yes. Don’t rush. They’ll have your papers ready soon.”
When he left I shaved. In the mirror I was pleased that the two scars left on my face did not hurt my looks, they added a rugged touch. The rest of the scars were not worth noticing.
I packed and stepped into the corridor. A patient was coming the other way, holding the wall.
“She made it after all!” a happy thought flashed.
The nurse came out and handed me the discharge.
“Goodbye, Thomas! Don’t come back to us!”
I had my own one-room apartment but I went to my parents’. My mother had been waiting and worrying so much she had even taken time off.
“Son!” she rushed to hug me.
“It’s fine, Mom! See, I’m alive and well.”
“Come on, I cooked for you. You’ve gotten so thin.”
“Oh, how I’ve missed home food!”
“Until you recover and marry you’ll stay in your old room. It’s still empty,” she called like to a child. “Go wash your hands!”
By evening I went to the barber. Then I stopped at my apartment for some clothes. My mother set to straightening them at once.
In the evening my father came from work. We sat together as before and talked until late.
I went to bed in my old room but did not fall asleep right away.
“Tomorrow the clinic in the morning. Then work. And in the evening…”
With that thought I finally slept, long after midnight.
The next day I went to the clinic in the morning. I moved from room to room until lunch. After lunch I went to work since it was my shift.
“Where are you going?” my father asked.
“Dad, remember long ago when I was still in fourth grade? You made a pendant as a gift for a classmate?”
“The plain Emily Thompson? I remember.”
“You also said, ‘Grow up, maybe you’ll fall in love with her.'”
“I remember that too.”
“Dad, Emily is a surgeon now. She operated on me. And she still wears that pendant.”
“Well, would you look at that!”
“Dad, your words came true. I’m going to see her!”
Twenty-seven years is not so much to start life with someone you love.A flash… A loud bang… Darkness… Darkness…
Finally the darkness began to lift. A voice reached me:
“Emily Thompson, this is the rescuer, something exploded over there.”
Through the pain I felt a hand on my neck. I forced my eyes open with effort. A rectangular pendant engraved with zodiac signs hung before me… the eyes of a woman in a white coat…
“To the operating room!” came a voice right next to me.
My parents came home from work. My mother went straight to the kitchen after glancing into the room where I was doing homework. My father, David, stepped inside and noticed right away that I looked down.
“Tom, what’s the matter?” he asked, patting my head.
“Nothing,” I grumbled, a fourth-grader.
“Come on, tell me.”
“Valentine’s Day is coming soon. The teacher kept us late today and said we had to get presents ready for the girls.”
“So what’s the trouble?” my father smiled.
“We’ve got the same number of boys and girls. She decided who gives to whom,” I sighed hard. “I got the plain-looking one, Emily Thompson.”
“All the girls want a gift on Valentine’s Day, plain ones included,” my father said, trying to talk to me like an adult. “How did she decide? By last names?”
“No, by zodiac signs.”
“How’s that work?” David smiled again.
“By compatibility. Emily is a Virgo, and Taurus matches Virgo best. I’m a Taurus.”
“That’s fine if you match! Grow up and maybe you’ll fall for her.”
My father couldn’t hold back and laughed. My mother, Sarah, rushed in at once:
“What’s going on here?”
“Sarah, go to the kitchen,” my father’s face went stern. “We have a serious talk with our son.”
When she left, I asked in a low voice:
“Dad, what do I do now?”
“Get a gift ready!”
“What kind?”
“Tomorrow at work I’ll make one for your chosen girl.”
“Dad, what gift can you make? You work at the factory.”
“Yes, but in the plating section. We handle every kind of metal coating.”
“I don’t understand, Dad.”
“You’ll see tomorrow!”
The next day my father brought a pendant on a chain, rectangular and looking golden. On one side two zodiac signs were engraved, Taurus and Virgo, and on the other side in small neat letters:
“To my classmate Emily for Valentine’s Day! Thomas.”
It looked so fine! And once my mother tucked it into a plastic bag it looked even better.
Valentine’s Day came. The teacher had no plans for regular lessons. First the class gave her a gift and she thanked them for a long time. Then she told the boys to hand out their presents to the girls.
Everything turned wild. All the boys hurried to their assigned girls. I walked up to Emily Thompson and said what my father had told me:
“Emily, happy Valentine’s Day! Maybe one day fate will bring the Taurus and the Virgo together.”
After the set words I went back to my seat and never noticed how this girl’s heart, the one I thought plain, started beating fast.
Soon Emily’s parents moved to another area and from fifth grade she went to a different school.
I opened my eyes to the white ceiling of the hospital room. I tried to move my arms and legs. Only my left arm worked.
“Where am I?” I said to no one.
There was a clatter and a patient on crutches came to my bed, looked me over and asked:
“You back with us? You’re in the emergency surgery ward.”
“Are my arms and legs all right?” I asked quietly.
“Everything seems to be there,” he said with good news. “You’re just bandaged head to toe.”
“That’s good if they’re all whole.”
A nurse came over and asked gently:
“How do you feel?”
“What happened to me?” I answered with a question.
“Your life is not in danger. Your arms and legs will work. You’ll just have a lot of scars left,” she handed me the phone, already on. “Your mother asked to call when you wake up.”
“Son,” my mother’s voice came through tears.
“Mom, I’m fine,” I tried to sound cheerful. “They said only small scars will stay. I’ll be discharged soon.”
“They wouldn’t let me stay with you overnight. Son, I’m coming now.”
“Mom, don’t get too upset!”
I set the phone down and tried to smile at the nurse.
“Thanks!”
“Well, they won’t let you out soon,” she smiled back. “You’ll be here three weeks for sure!”
“What happened to you?” the roommate asked once the nurse left.
“I’m a rescuer. Oxygen cylinders started exploding at the factory,” I began to remember. “They called us. We got there before the firefighters. The room was huge, three injured inside. We ran in, tanks scattered around, fire in spots. We started carrying the injured out… I was the last one leaving… When I reached the door another cylinder blew… I don’t remember after that.”
“Yeah, you caught it bad.”
“Thomas Harris,” the nurse called. “A coworker is here to see you.”
“Hey, Tom! How are you?”
“Arms and legs are still there!” I answered brightly. “But I can only shake with my left hand right now!”
“Don’t worry about it!”
“What happened after?”
“We were already heading out when it blew. We ran back in and pulled you out… you were covered in blood… doctors were already there…”
“Thanks!”
“Tom, what are you talking about?” my friend suddenly grinned. “They want to put us up for medals.”
“I’ll be out by then.”
“Alright, I’m off. Rounds are coming. The nurse said keep it short.”
My friend had not left when the doctor, a man about forty, came in:
“How are you, hero?” he said, stepping to my bed.
“Fine.”
“Since you’re talking you’ll live. Let me check you over!”
“Did you stitch me up?” I asked.
“No, Emily Thompson. She’ll come the day after tomorrow.”
Two days passed. I had started trying to stand. My legs still hurt badly and my right arm was torn open. There were at least ten wounds across my body. Two on my face when the blast threw me into the door; good I got my right arm up in time. I looked in the mirror. My face was still swollen.
The doctor who had spent five hours sewing me in the operating room two days before was due for rounds today. I felt a little nervous.
Then she came in. Young, slim, wearing glasses that did not hurt her looks, and the white coat suited her well. At twenty-seven I had already been married, but we split after six months over personalities, though the real reason was my ex did not like a rescuer’s pay.
“Hello,” she said and came to my bed.
“Hello. Did you operate on me?”
“Yes,” she smiled. “Something wrong?”
“Let me examine you.”
She leaned over me… Before my eyes the pendant with zodiac signs swung from her neck:
“Emily Thompson!” I called out.
She looked hard at my swollen face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, still not knowing me.
“I’m a Taurus,” I said and pointed to the pendant.
“Tom Harris?” her lips shook. “You still remember me?”
“Of course, Emily,” I said, laying my hand on hers as tears showed in her eyes.
“Sorry,” she took a tissue and wiped her eyes. “I never thought we’d meet this way.”
She did not come back to my room that day. But I already knew her schedule matched mine: day shift, night shift, two days off.
I did not want to look helpless in front of her. All the next day I tried walking in the room by holding the beds, and a couple times I made it into the hall by leaning on the wall.
Evening. The daytime doctor left. The new shift arrived, you could tell from the talk in the hall. Rounds were next…
Suddenly shouts and quick steps in the corridor. That happens when a new patient arrives.
It was ten o’clock. The nurse came in and turned off the light. But I could not sleep. Long after midnight footsteps sounded in the corridor, then stopped, and in the quiet I felt more than heard someone crying out there. I got up and went carefully into the hall.
My former classmate sat at the nurses’ desk, head on her hands, crying. I walked over and put my good hand on her shoulder.
“What’s wrong, Emily?”
She stood and pressed against my shoulder.
“I operated on a woman hit by a car,” she said, voice breaking. “I did everything possible… She’s in intensive care now but she won’t make it. She has two children… her husband is with her in the room…”
“Calm down, Emily.”
“I’ve been a surgeon for three years and still can’t get used to people dying.”
“Easy now. That’s the job. In five years I’ve seen plenty of deaths too, but we’ve saved many lives,” I sighed. “That’s why my wife left. She said I come home not myself and don’t earn enough. But I always bring home forty, enough to live on.”
“Same with me,” she looked at my face. “Guys look at me like I’m crazy. I’ve never been married, still live with my parents like a kid.”
“Come on, we’re only twenty-seven, life is still ahead.”
“No, Tom, we’re already twenty-seven.”
“Emily Thompson, her pulse is dropping,” a nurse shouted as she ran out.
“Sorry!” Emily rushed to intensive care.
I could not sleep that night. In the morning the nurse gave me my usual shot.
“Is the woman from last night’s surgery alive?” I asked, surprising even myself.
“Alive, but in very serious condition.”
Three weeks passed. The wounds on my body had closed. We saw each other on her shifts, and I felt pulled toward her more and more. But the emergency surgery ward is not the place for personal talk.
During one morning round the male doctor said:
“I’m discharging you today,” he smiled. “From the hospital. Go straight to your clinic and they’ll decide how much more sick leave you need.”
“I can pack!”
“Yes, yes. Don’t rush. They’ll have your papers ready soon.”
When he left I shaved. In the mirror I was pleased that the two scars left on my face did not hurt my looks, they added a rugged touch. The rest of the scars were not worth noticing.
I packed and stepped into the corridor. A patient was coming the other way, holding the wall.
“She made it after all!” a happy thought flashed.
The nurse came out and handed me the discharge.
“Goodbye, Thomas! Don’t come back to us!”
I had my own one-room apartment but I went to my parents’. My mother had been waiting and worrying so much she had even taken time off.
“Son!” she rushed to hug me.
“It’s fine, Mom! See, I’m alive and well.”
“Come on, I cooked for you. You’ve gotten so thin.”
“Oh, how I’ve missed home food!”
“Until you recover and marry you’ll stay in your old room. It’s still empty,” she called like to a child. “Go wash your hands!”
By evening I went to the barber. Then I stopped at my apartment for some clothes. My mother set to straightening them at once.
In the evening my father came from work. We sat together as before and talked until late.
I went to bed in my old room but did not fall asleep right away.
“Tomorrow the clinic in the morning. Then work. And in the evening…”
With that thought I finally slept, long after midnight.
The next day I went to the clinic in the morning. I moved from room to room until lunch. After lunch I went to work since it was my shift.
“Where are you going?” my father asked.
“Dad, remember long ago when I was still in fourth grade? You made a pendant as a gift for a classmate?”
“The plain Emily Thompson? I remember.”
“You also said, ‘Grow up, maybe you’ll fall in love with her.'”
“I remember that too.”
“Dad, Emily is a surgeon now. She operated on me. And she still wears that pendant.”
“Well, would you look at that!”
“Dad, your words came true. I’m going to see her!”
Twenty-seven years is not so much to start life with someone you love.
