08.

I've tried writing again... so far I was able to add a few more paragraphs to a story I've started writing years ago... I haven't been able to finish it yet but I hope to be able to... soon...

Here's a peek. Suggestions, opinions and violent reactions are very welcome.

A Dream Waiting To Happen


After working two 16-hour shifts at the ER, Elena came home and crashed on the couch. Sleep came quickly. She was exhausted and it was all she could do to get home and not fall asleep on the bus.

An hour into her sleep, the dream started. It was the same dream. She was aboard this large yacht and was affectionately held by this tall, lanky guy with a boyish grin and smoldering brown eyes. She felt so secure, so loved. And when he turned her around and framed her face in his hands to kiss her, she felt hot liquid desire shoot straight down to her body. When his large hands cupped her breasts, she woke up.

"Fuck. Not again," Elena thought. Who the hell was that guy? Why did she keep dreaming about him? She's pretty sure she hasn't seen him anywhere, so why was he always in her dreams? "This is ridiculous," she muttered to herself.

Getting up from the couch, Elena trudged into her bedroom, searched for her iPod, stuck the earphones on, curled up on her bed and willed herself to sleep. She needed to rest. She deserved to rest, didn’t she? Hasn’t she just come from working her butt off, stitching up lacerations, putting in IVs, following up lab results, fighting with the attending ER surgeon because all he wanted to do was cut up people, never mind that they only had diarrhea?

With Missy Higgins crooning in her ear and the thought of smacking the attending surgeon upside his head with a bedpan, Elena finally drifted off to sleep.

Beep. Beep.

Elena shot off the bed like a runner at the mark. Disoriented, pissed and not at all rested, she looked at her bedside clock. Great, four hours of sleep. She curled up on her bed again, burrowed under the covers and prayed that whoever was beeping her would go away.

Beep. Beep.

“Fine, you win! Inconsiderate little bastard! I’m getting up, see!? Beeping douche…”

One look at the pager’s readout made her stop short on her way to the bathroom. It was the code for massive vehicular accident and their ER was getting the bulk of the injured survivors. Hurriedly, she tied her hair back, brushed her teeth, splashed cold water on her face and grabbing everything she came home with, went out the door.

She got to the ER just as the first EMT van rolled in. The day shift nurses and most, if not all of the residents and interns were anxiously waiting for the injured.

“Dr. Martinez! Elena, over here,” shouted the ER’s attending physician, Dr. Charles Cohen.

“Chuck! Holy crap, what happened? I got here as fast as I could.”

“School bus, head on collision with a tour bus. It’s the weirdest thing. Dispatch called in 27 casualties, 3 DOS and 9 severely injured and we’re getting all of them. Can you believe it?”

“Damn. Well lemme go get ready so I can take the next... wait, why are we getting the DOS? Shouldn’t they go straight to county morgue? Oh god, please don’t tell me we’re going to do organ harvesting on top of everything else. “

“EMTs found donor cards, what can you do?”

“Poor bastards. The DOS, not the EMTs. Oh well, I’ll be right out.”

Elena arrowed straight for the doctors’ lockers, yanked open hers, threw everything in, grabbed her white coat and hurried back out.

“Dr. Martinez! Over here! Head and chest trauma, BP 80 over 60, patient was mostly conscious during transport; kid’s name is Richard Conway. Minor lacerations and abrasions on appendages. He’s one of the lucky ones,” reported one of the EMTs pushing the gurney.

“I’ll take it from here, thanks. Cross-match and crit, Trauma Room 2, I want skull and chest x-rays and I want it yesterday! Let’s make sure he stays one of the lucky ones people,” ordered Elena at the swarm of nurses and interns surrounding the gurney.

“Richard, sweetie… my name is Dr. Elena Martinez. You’re at Southside County Hospital, can you hear me?”

The child moaned weakly, slowly and painfully nodded his head and said, “Yes.”

For two straight hours, Elena worked on her patient and when she was satisfied that he was out of danger, she went around the ER to help with the other casualties.

A few more hours later, sensing an opportunity to rest, she stole into one of the doctor’s sleep areas and stretched out on one of the cots. In just a few minutes she was asleep, exhausted and drained. Until the dream came again. This time, they were standing aboard the same yacht, kissing. His hands on her face, her arms around him, they were dancing slowly to a muted song in the background. When their kiss deepened and intensified, he broke off, looked deep into her eyes and said, “I’m going to make love to you Elena. I’m going to make you mine tonight.”

“Dr. Martinez? Elena, wake up. Hey, your patient’s dad is asking for you,” Chuck laughingly nudged her awake. “Were you dreaming? Boy, I wonder what kind of dream that was… you sure sounded sexy moaning like that.”

“What? Oh grow up will you! Fine, I’m getting up! Geez, what does a girl have to do to get 8 hours of solid sleep? If it’s not one thing it’s the other,” she said grumpily.

Elena walked over to the room’s dinky wash area, splashed some water on her face, finger-combed and retied her hair, “I look horrible! Well, Elena, you wanted to be a doctor so live with it! Now suck it up and go talk to the kid’s father,” she told herself, “it’s not like he’s Brad Pitt or anything.”

Pausing only to check on some other patients, Elena walked into Trauma 2 and stopped dead in her tracks. There, inside that antiseptic smelling room was THE man in her dreams. He was lightly stroking the injured boy’s head, his other hand holding the boy’s hand.

Whachuthink?