The Nurse

Today’s prompt: “Write from the point of view of a nurse who hates the patient she is charged with helping.”

In the early days of the pandemic, she texted her husband a minute before she got home from her shift. He would scoop up their 3- and 5-year-old kids and take them upstairs to play with toys so she could run into the bathroom and shower without her little girls trying to give her a hug first. She was so scared of giving it to them.

They relaxed that rule after she and her husband got vaccinated, but she got a breakthrough infection of the Delta variant. It’s hard not to when you’re around sick people nearly every waking moment, even if you are using masks and face shields and washing your hands until they’re raw. Her whole family had mild cases. It was the most she’s been able to stay home in over two years. She hasn’t had a proper vacation in three goddamn years. That would be endurable if it weren’t for the fact that the past two years have been long shift after long shift after long shift with no letup, and more patients dying than at any other time in her career.

In the early days, she felt proud to do her part. She was on the front lines of a disaster, holding back the tides. Her profession was needed, and she would step up and make the sacrifice. But as the months went on and on with no letup, as the hospitals stayed full despite the available vaccines, the reservoirs of her good will went dry. She sacrificed so much, for so long, and these assholes can’t even get a simple shot? She is sick. Of. Your. Shit.

And so when you, on your deathbed, turn to her and ask, “Is it too late to get the vaccine?”, she cannot hide the hatred in her eyes.