The operating table

Looking around in the dim light, Eugenie realized that the room they had been using was a maternity room. She lazily rolled her stool next to Barry thinking about that. How many babies had been delivered in that place? She had never seen an empty public place, let alone a medical one. Now, she was alone in this room that had witnessed the start of many human lives, the transformation of many people into parents. Some of them might have become shitty parents, some others, excellent ones.

She looked down at Barry. There would be a next step in the following hour that would be to locate an actual bed with a mattress and some bedding where to stick him on. She had sent everyone on a mission for that. She wished to be alone with him. In a way, she desired to admire her own work. It was easy to think back at all those doctors who had been condescending to her back during her nursing internship, who had deterred her for pursuing this professional path, but she couldn’t do that. It had never been a vocation for Eugenie, to become a nurse, it had rather been something she had pulled out of her hat when she couldn’t think of an idea post secondary. That’s why she understood teenagers so well, she often told herself: she had felt like one for a very long time, long after you’re supposed to stop being a teenager.

At the time she had been an intern, she wasn’t focused, she wasn’t detail-oriented. She was fascinated by the number of existences that she could hold between her hands and see go better or worse, sometimes much worse, and that had been where her heart was, but not her devotion. She couldn’t blame those people for discouraging her away from this field, because they had been right. But there was a simple, basic human wish that danced in front of her eyes right now, if you could see me, I can do stuff, I can do stuff I didn’t know I was capable of.

She had opened Barry like a cake, what could be commonly called a small incision in the middle of his chest but that she thought was quite huge, and she had spread the two sides of his torso with forceps, which was the moment when Darlene’s cheeks had filled with vomit but she had held on. There, she had succeeded to staple the side of his lung upright so he could continue to breathe with it and there would be no need to discard it and add it to the pile of Darlene’s puke in the corner of the room, or replace it with some fancy technology that Alphonse hadn't invented yet as had been the case with some of Robortor’s body parts. She had taped some of his ribs together so they wouldn’t be bouncing inside their cage and threatening some other poor soft tissue organs. She hoped with all her heart that she had been clean enough in that enterprise. Only time would tell. Only death would be a sign, and life on the opposite plane.

She stiffened at the sound of steps in the adjacent hallway, but it must have been something falling and rolling along the empty walls, because silence quickly followed back. She was still alone with Barry. Eugenie leaned over and run her fingers around the square of sponging gauze on his chest to make sure they were still sticky. Blood was still leaking and making everything slimy too fast, she thought, but the transfusion that was running from a Bordeaux color baggie on the side towards the middle of Barry’s left arm was working its way to make up for it. Blood was a liquid and liquids flowed, she had heard so many times. Even through the tightest-looking stitching jobs, through a tiny hole, liquids flowed. You just had to replace them with better and newer liquids, keep the balance. The hole under the top square, just under his clavicle bone, was huge and had shredded edges. Eugenie recalled having seen the same on a man that had been shot through his eye, and had almost had his nose taken away by the exit wound.

She wasn’t bothered by the sight of those things, strangely, which was a skill that, of course, was much needed if you were going to work trying to heal people and save their lives, but Eugenie had always thought that it was random, probably innate, probably inexplicable. She had never brushed against gore or hemoglobin or broken bodies before she had started Medicine School, so she couldn’t really attribute this absence of being disturbed to any particular life training. She could see people empty themselves of their life force and fluids, mouths wide open, eyes yellowed, and not bat her own eyes. She could hear people screams of pain and not wish to cover her ears, not feel haunted by their echoes once at home or in the shower or before sleep. It was truly a gift, that she had wasted, before Barry showed and up and demanded she resurrected that skill.

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As she did him, presently. She had brought him back to life, except this time, she hadn’t done it alone. Without Marlene and Ivan and Alphonse and even Darlene, Barry would be dead. She looked at his face and realized his eyes were half open. She gasped and jumped on her butt, “Jesussss”

Barry blinked at her. In this position, which was still the operating table, his head lied down flat without pillow under it, just a thin metal box that was holding the elastic bands of the impressive oxygen mask which had been placed around his mouth, while an even more impressive thick tube was still stuck down his throat. He closed his eyes and seemed to sigh, “Barry?” she asked, bringing her face closer to his, sliding her fingers inside his. He blinked quickly several times and, in spite of the spoonful that the tube invaded between his teeth, he showed her a little smile. “You crazy motherfucker” she whispered, “what are you smiling about”

He nodded feebly, blinked quickly again, and then shut his eyes again. Very wet tears dropped on the sides of his head. “It’s alright” Eugenie pulled up the sides of the space blanket all around him to conserve warmth, as it was still impossible to cover him with anything , “I repaired you Barry” she said, at least I hope so, I certainly can’t be sure for now, “now you get this job, it’s your turn to do the work, you have to just” she felt grief obstruct her throat, looked up at the ceiling to fight against a sob, “you know. You are strong”

She nodded, but he just seemed to look right through her. Without the very useful beeps of the different machines he was hooked to, she could have wondered if he had just died, while she was turning her eyes up to the sky, for a nanosecond, “nod if you understand me” she ordered him with authority. He moved his head almost imperceptibly, flickered his eyelids, shed more eye water, “you are powerful. If you die, Barry, I will kill you” His little smile returned, weakly lifting the corners of his lips, as he recognized the fake line they had both delivered to one of his former one-night stands at the moment of making up a story.

His cheeks and forehead were starting to sweat a lot again and a quick spasm zapped up his shoulders, which was probably due to the anguish in his body, so Eugenie clicked the drip of the morphine on the foot of the bed and sent him a fresh wave of relief, “sleep, Barry, sleep, close your eyes” she scratched his skull with tenderness, but panic flashed madly at the center of his eyes, “no no, i know you are afraid, but you will be alright, it’s okay to go to sleep, just for a couple hours” one tear from her own eye landed on Barry’s nose, “shit, I’m crying on your face, BARRY” she wiped another tear, “I trust you. And you trust my judgement, right?” He blinked as fast as he could, “goood? Don’t be afraid. I will see you on the other side, don’t worry”

His eyes slowly closed and lost more tears, which accumulated under his bottom lid now, making a mini puddle, “don’t fight it” Eugenie said. The water from their tears mixed in that little pool, on his skin. Then he was asleep. Eugenie remained frozen on top of Barry, leaned almost against him, her hands around his head, for two or three very long minutes during which she couldn’t move, because all her body was screaming to do was expel from the operating room and grab a huge stick or a chair and destroy as many walls as she could and shatter as much furniture as possible. She had not been ready for that terror she had seen at the bottom of his eyes as she encouraged him to fall asleep and to have faith and to be strong. She wished so much she could presently rewind that moment that had just evaporated on the timeline and change her decision, modify how she had spoken to him.

The violence of her uncertainty suffocated her, so much so that she had to push herself away from Barry and let herself crumble to the floor, her butt sinking in the middle of the blood pond, her back shaking against the metal leg of the operating table. The cruelty of the unknown overcame her, sucked her into darkness, “Eugenie” she heard Darlene enter the room, “why are you on the ground crying is Barry dead??”

“Noo he’s not dead, he’s alive I guess” she sobbed openly, “can I be alone please”

“Darling” Darlene crouched in front of her and wrapped her arms around Eugenie.

“I don’t know what to do” Eugenie cried in her friend’s neck, sticking her hair to her runny nose

“You did well, you did WELL"

"Really?"

"Of course!" Darlene whispered with tenderness, "I'm sure, I mean, probably"