Pool_2

>> Cafeteria 6 <<

It was a slow day for news, however, the Joint Commission was finished with this years inspection. To hear the various doctors describe it, they came for revenge and especially to piss off medical staff with endless pursuits of trivia. Conversation was naturally seeded with wonder about who would be zapped in their report. "Why do those toads judge us? Who are they?" was the general trend. Self aggrandizement and each one's contribution to society followed. Only Frank Sumner was, as usual, restrained. Larry Osten tried to draw him out a bit, "Hey Frank, what did your department do for the commission?" "Bled." "Clarify, please," Osten nudged. "Well, this kid came in with a pumper from a knife wound to the arm. I took lady stiff ass reviewer with me on the call. The resident had it clamped already, but I let the thing spurt right on her and into her purse as I made an adjustment. I offered her my jock strap to wipe it off. She just cursed me out. Well, fuck her. Fuck them all. Like I care." Frank Sumner said something funny? But it wasn't, nor was that his intent. He was the one bleeding. Though it seemed that only Osten picked up the scent, a silent and distant Macaluso was making soft guttural throat sounds. Concerned by Sumner's cracking decorum, Larry softly argued, "But you do care. You of all people." Everybody else was laughing, though surprised at Frank's long over due offering to the Table. But that oversight didn't last long as he slumped over, "Nah. I'm losing it, Larry. I feel nothing. I have become half wood, like my face." That thread was not pulled further lest the man, himself, unravel. A cool eerie silence rippled outward.