Drawing of lungs with a smoking pipe inside. [https://em.wattpad.com/a121d317eabfb1303bd85754f2517a999b177ee1/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f70447a6d5343435f444c434945773d3d2d3735333831333636302e313562353739613939613534616431613336393832333137313237392e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
"Green jello today? Mixing things up?"
My lungs push the words out. It's amazing I've already started thinking of them as mine, because they weren't. Not until a few days ago. I almost feel disloyal, since my lungs - the lungs that propelled me through little league soccer and high school choir, the lungs that sobbed my way through my first breakup - my lungs are laying in a bin somewhere, empty, inert. Out of commission since being riddled with shrapnel in the one-and-only explosion I've ever experienced.
I exploded, I remember. It's still surreal.
After I woke up from the transplant, the doctor said one of my thrown-away lungs had a pipe lodged in it. Not like a big metal pipe from under the sink, but a tiny designer glass pipe for smoking pot after a stressful workday. The irony makes me want to start a career in stand-up. I knew smoking was bad for your lungs, but this is ri-di-cu-lous!
My doctor also told me that the organ donor was one of the other victims of the explosion. Half of each of us made it, but I got the conscious half. I recognized the woman's name: Dee McPhearson, my neighbor just down the hall. I can't recall ever speaking so much as a word to her. I wish I hadn't been such a recluse, that I'd made some effort to get to know Dee even a little, considering she is effectively going to be performing CPR on me for the rest of my life.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The lovely night nurse, Dan, plops a tray of jello and apple juice in front of me. He grins at my green jello comment. He grins at everything I say. I know he treats all of the patients this way, but I still can't help feeling special.
"Green is my favorite flavor, you know," I say, peeling open the tub. The Jello wobbles inside.
"I prefer purple," he says. "How are you feeling?"
The conversation is so normal, you could almost forget it's 2 am. Hospitals run on fictional time. Dan brings me food — if you can call Jello food — whenever I wake up, which is basically whenever I need a new dose of painkillers.
"I'm doing fine," I say. It's a lot easier to talk to Dan now that I have permission to crutch myself over to the bathroom to relieve myself without assistance. The first few days were... awkward. I'll never understand how nurses can make small talk while helping someone pee.
"Are you doing your breathing exercises?" He asks. I take the strange cylindrical contraption from my bedside table and blow into it. The bobber — I assume it measures the strength of my breath — wobbles pitifully. If we were at a carnival, I wouldn't be winning any prizes.
"Good," Dan says. "Ten of those every hour, alright?"
"Aye aye," I say before launching into a spectacular coughing fit. I cough uncontrollably and wholeheartedly until the world starts spinning. The line down my chest throbs where my rib cage had cracked open. My hand-me-down lungs ache deeply and pitifully as if they're still homesick for their rightful ribcage.
I roll my head to avoid coughing at Dan and cough toward the window instead. Two levels down in the parking lot, the streetlights carve cones of bright spiraling snow. A woman stands motionless in a bright cut of light, and though it can't possibly be who I think it is, though my vision is blurred from the effort of coughing, I am convinced she is staring at me.
"Are you okay?" Dan asks. I give a few more weak coughs, then muster the energy to speak.
"It's a mutiny," I squeeze out.