The Alternative

     It’s Valentine’s Day and the museum is closed due to inclement weather. Everyone in security had to come in anyways, though there’s no need for all of us to be here, so I hobbled on my crutches through the snow and am now sitting here getting paid to drink cold coffee from a paper cup.

      My bosses are laughing and carrying on about a new product one of them saw advertised. It is a metal and plastic ball that attaches to the muzzle of a gun. When you pull the trigger, the bullet is slowed down by the ball, so that by the time it hits the target it will have been rendered non-lethal. It’s called the Alternative. I admit it sounds pretty questionable but these guys are howling  like it is the funniest thing they’ve ever seen.

      They talk about an incident ten years ago, there was a guy acting rowdy down on the waterfront and when the cops came they shot him with an orange shotgun, which is only supposed to be loaded with non-lethal ammunition, only someone had loaded it with real bullets. “Lotta people lost their jobs over that one,” one of them says. The other nods, no longer laughing.

      Today is the one year anniversary of my first day of hyperbaric treatment. This exact time I was being pulled from the hyperbaric chamber, dazed by the strangeness of it all. 

     I think about whether to send a text to nurse Hannah wishing her a happy Valentine’s Day. I would send her flowers but I don’t know her address, don’t even know her last name.

      I was supposed to get my shot of retina medicine today but the office is closed. The nurses strike has hit a wall. Last week the hospital made them an offer but 83% of the nurses rejected it. There have been no talks since. The hospital says the nurses will lose their insurance at the end of the month. I would like to hunt down every one of those millionaire administrators, gun them down in cold blood. I don’t love the idea of murder but we are being left with no good alternatives. 

      Nurse Hannah isn’t affected by the strike since she isn’t an RN. I send her a text and she texts back immediately. Friendly but noncommittal. I send another text and she doesn’t respond. I sip my cold coffee. Snow is still falling but the streets are black. it’s already starting to melt.