TUESDAY TALES - WORD PROMPT "STRING"

Welcome! This week we're writing to the prompt "string." I have another episode of "Unforgettable", my pandemic romance. This may be upsetting or hard to take. If so, just scroll down and return to Tuesday Tales for a story from a different author. I understand. Please feel free to leave comments. I take them to heart. 
Thanks for stopping by. 

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Time flew. He barely had time to breathe. By two o’clock, there was a momentary lull.

“Karen, I need to…”

“You and me, both. Be right back.”

He chuckled and made a beeline for the bathroom. He met her back within minutes.

“Do you want to take a break to eat?” Karen stared at the clock.

Two thirty and lunch had never crossed his mind. The loud growl from his stomach must have alerted everyone. 
Embarrassed, he nodded. “I won’t be long.” He headed for the lounge. He eased his sandwiches from underneath someone else’s food. Cold, flattened peanut butter and jelly never tasted so good. He gobbled up one after the other, then opened a bottle of water. Checking his watch, he gave himself two minutes to relax and let his stomach digest before returning to work.

“Is it always like this?” he asked Karen.

“Most days. Some are worse.”

“Worse? How could this be worse?” His eyebrows rose.

“Oh, believe me. You don’t wanna know.”

A machine beeped loudly. This time is was Mr. Sheffield. Cary looked at his chart. He’d been on the respirator for ten days. It didn’t look good.

“He’d been holding his own for a week. We thought he was getting better. Then, last night, he started to decline.” She spoke out of earshot of the patient.

“He got better then declined?”

“That’s what’s been happening. They look better, then they fall off the cliff.”

 Cary shook his head.

“This disease is the worst. Just horrible.” Karen blinked rapidly.

Mr. Sheffield’s machine went off again. This time they weren’t able to revive him. Cary rubbed the back of his neck. The old man with a twinkle in his eye, reminded him of Gramps.

Karen motioned.

“It’s Mrs. Kent this time.”

They followed the beeping. He kept going and going until he grew numb. Slumping into a chair in the lounge, he struggled to find the strength to open a bottle of water.

“Go home.” It was Alan Snider.“It’s six thirty. Go home. Good night.”

Cary dumped his scrubs, sanitized his hands for the one-hundredth time that day, and shrugged on his coat. He hobbled down the stairs and into the subway. Finding a deli open, he bought bags and bags of food.

Stuffing the heaviest things in his backpack before tightening the string, he lugged the rest as he shuffled down the sidewalk. Mr. Sheffield, Mrs. Richards, Mrs. Kent –and four of the other patients he’d seen the day before, gone. He’d lost them all. That had never happened to him before. He watched people die, one after another, and stood powerless to save them.

When he reached the stoop, he dragged his exhausted body up the steps. He put the bags down and drew the key from his pocket. Fumbling with the lock, he couldn’t see because his eyes were full. He stopped moving, rested his forehead against the cool glass panel and cried.

TUESDAY TALES

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