Paper Pushers

Paper pushers, god I hate paper pushers.  I mean usually I can deal with it, they got a job to do just like anyone else, but sometimes it just seems they're pushing my buttons on purpose.  Papers, buttons, same gesture really.  I can stand the tax guys, the little cardboard cut out men in the same suit as the guy sitting one cubicle over, and I can stand the telemarketers and stupid customer service phone jockeys; somehow it's become something of a game, trying to guess where they're from by the accent, and I can even feel sorry for the poor schlubs at the DMV, but I just can't stand the damn hospital paper Nazis.  You'd think, in a hospital of all places, they'd be more understanding, but I think they find the most annoying, bubble headed people in the world and paint a plastic smile on their faces. 

         My chosen seat put me as far from the emergency room desk and all the other waiters in here.  Just by luck I found one all by itself in the corner, and by consequence, it happened to be right next to the trashcan and the “complimentary” sludge they call coffee around here.  I'm staring down at the forms in my lap, holding the pen they bungee to the clipboard wondering just exactly why they need to know my mother's maiden name to stitch up my head.  Granted, they were nice enough to give me the “abbreviated” form so they can “process” me faster (like I'm some kind of food they've got to preserve), due to the fact that the gash in my skull had been bleeding when I came in.  A nurse wanders past with her cart of pillows, blankets and tissues, the flight attendant of the emergency room.           Even the name “emergency room” is laughable, reminding me of the express lane at every grocery store I've ever been to, somehow it's always packed while the other clerks lean on their counters popping gum and enjoying boredom.  Sometimes it pisses me off so bad I want to just tackle them, slapping the gum from their mouths until their faces bleed, spilling red on tile as white as paper.  I blink away the image, but the red on white seems to be all I can see.  Shit.  There's blood on my forms, a big fat drop had splattered across the place where I'm supposed to sign the stupid thing while I was daydreaming.  Forget it, more binding than ink anyway. 

         I jerk to my feet and stride over to the desk where I'm greeted by a Barbie smile from a scrawny brunette in pink teddy bear scrubs.  They hang from her frame like curtains, and I'd bet anything I could feel her ribs and hipbones if I just poked her from the look of her skeletal face and bony hands clacking madly at the keys of her computer.  Wonder if I could bribe her with a muffin.  I drop the clipboard in front of her, the plastic slapping the marble top like a lightning crack.  Her smile fades slowly as I place my hands next to the clipboard and lean over her, my gash threatening to bleed on her, drowning one of those stupid bears on her top.

         “Can I help you sir?” She swallowed hard.  I gave her a moment to take in the scene before her.  A strange, possibly crazed guy in bloodstained jeans and t-shirt, reeking of whiskey, and he's towering over her, blocking her view of the door and the waiting room.

         “You could get me a doctor.”

         “What's the matter, sir?  Do you need immediate assistance?”  What's the matter? 

         “As a matter of fact yes, I do need immediate assistance, you see, my head is bleeding right here since I got cracked in the head with a barstool about an hour ago, and you know, I don't think it should still be bleeding so maybe you could get me someone who knows how to stitch me up and I'll be out of your way, promise.”

         “I'm sorry, sir, but really I can't treat you any different than the other patients, and we've got an emergency on the way, some kind of accident on highway 109, so it may be some time before a doctor will be available to treat you.”  She replied, looking over my forms.

         “109, you said?  I live out there, did they say who?”

         “I'm sorry sir, I can't disclose that information and if you will just fill out a new copy of this form, I'll be happy to get you into our computers.”  She carefully replaced the form on the clipboard between us and dropped the old one in the bio box next to her desk, then gave me that smile again.  I ignored it a moment, feeling a droplet of blood collecting along my hairline, wait, wait, wait, drop.  It fell and splattered on the bear on her shoulder.  She screamed and jumped up, running into the bowels of the hospital looking for some place to free herself from the risk of infection.  Bullseye.  I grabbed the clipboard and headed back to my seat to give it another go, but I knew I'd never get it done now, I was too curious about the accident on 109.  Something about it didn't sit well with me, I knew too many people out there and I found myself wondering who it was, and contemplating whose death would bother me the least and most of all my neighbors.