(@work, 5am, knocking on the door of shattered hip woman)
ME: hello? (knocks louder) ...HEY.HELLO?
SHATTERED HIP WOMAN: (jolts awake, almost losing nasal cannula in the process) OH! (looks around, confused)
ME: just me. sorry. how ya doing? (putting on gloves)
HER: i.......never know where i am when i wake up here.
ME: oh yeah? and where would you like to be?
HER: not here.
ME: that makes two of u

s. (assembles incontinent brief and pad)
HER: no...ha ha...i mean i just wish i was, you know...(mutters) not... alive...anymore. i've had enough of all this.
ME: (sighs) yeah?
HER: please don't tell anyone. you know how they are.
ME: trust me i am the last person who is going to make you feel bad about admitting something like that.
HER: .....
ME .... (raises bed)
HER: ...what i mean to say is...i am 95 years old. i am tired. i always hurt. i am stuck lying here thinking..and no one even visits me
ME: right..(tears off soiled diaper)
HER: and when i first wake up and look around i keep thinking i'm done and it's really over, finally
ME: uh..
HER: ...
ME: and is it scary or calming to think that?
HER: for a moment it is a very very good thing.
ME: ... (wipes ass)

 HER: .... (stares out window)
ME: i thought i was dead once?
HER: ( turns around) oh yeah?
ME: yeah.
HER: what did it look like?
ME: well...i don't know if "look" is the right word. i was younger. and on a lot of drugs . and still can't tell you if my eyes were open or closed, but..(suddenly realizing what i'm admitting to a patient at a healthcare job)
HER: go on.
ME: you want me to describe it as best i can?
HER: please.
ME: well..imagine a tornado of moving wires? it is shaped like a ball? it is perpetually circling and entangling itself all at once. imagine landing on this ball and getting enveloped into it. all you can see is moving wires. there is no up, down, north, south or whatever. there is no gravity, or sense of your own body. just movement of these wires. and you are apart of it. you are inhaling and exhaling and being dissolved by these wires. and it is the most calming thing you can ever recall experiencing.
HER: oh wow.
ME: i mean i'd almost call it maternal, but it's more like a waiting room between forms, if that makes any sense? familar. like a place you would stay if you could but you know you can't? it's beautiful and safe but also restless and impermanent.
HER: ... (staring hard at me like im an alien)
ME: i mean i don't know.
HER: (bites lip, then blurts out) the other morning i woke up and i was on a beach and there was fire in the sky. the ground was quicksand. i put up my arms.
ME: oh yeah? what did you reach for?
HER: i just reached.
ME: oh. were you afraid?
HER: no, i was curious. i still am. we shouldn't talk so much about death.

ME: well, i mean, i do see alot of it happening around me while i work here?
HER: hahaha
ME: no offense.