"Dead Girl Rolling" by Angela Kubinec

Dead Girl Rolling

They left me laying on a gurney for hours, studying the ceiling tiles and the sprinkler system, wondering if some of those black hemispheres above were really security cameras or just something to trick us. They gave me as many blankets as I wanted, and every few minutes someone with a stethoscope and a notebook would politely ask me if I was alright, knowing there was nothing they could give me but a reassuring smile; then they told me things they had to know I would never remember. Two sturdy women rolled me into the operating suite, and I carefully hoisted myself from the gurney to the operating table. They strapped my arms to those same things they used in Dead Man Walking, and that was when a tear slid out of my left eye and into my ear. The nurse wiped it away, and told me some shit I didn't want to hear about what they were getting ready to do, saying, “It will all be alright,” and then the anesthesiologist turned to the right and said, “Here comes your joy juice,” as I felt ice creeping into my right hand and rapidly up my lower arm. “Night-night,” she added perkily, as the mask tipped over my face and I lost consciousness, having never made eye contact with the woman who was holding my life.

Jerry Ratch, Jan 10, 2019

Angela Kubinec, Jan 10, 2019

Thanks for the fave, Jerry.

Mathew Paust, Jan 10, 2019

Yikes. I feel the same eerie sense of approaching doom I get reading "The Premature Burial!"

Beate Sigriddaughter, Jan 11, 2019

Wow. Scary. *

Michael D. Brown, Jan 11, 2019

I expected to hear a few more words in that last sentence. It ends so abruptly, it reads like the anesthesia taking effect. Touche.

Tim G. Young, Jan 11, 2019

It's kind of an irony how the human element is removed from these situations. *

Angela Kubinec, Jan 11, 2019

Thanks to all.

Beate and Tim, thanks too, for the *.

Michael, I thought a bit about the last sentence, too. It is abrupt, and I wondered if it sounded like too quick a "final" thought. That was how it felt. Lights out, so long, you're partly dead. Boom.