I opened my eyes, blinking back the blurriness. Shook my head, trying to rid it of the grogginess. I looked at my surroundings. It was a cave. Cold, damp, and mildly dark—mild because lamps were hanging at various points around the shadowed room. It was a small and round cave, as most caves might be. I could even hear the lonely, echoing drips of water, one drop by one drop, as they trickled through crevices. It smelled of moss, and mushrooms, and perfume, and something else. Something acrid. Metallic. The perfume was coming from Darlene, the beautiful blonde in front of me. Her long, lithe figure stood some fifty feet away. She was toying with something in her hand. I noted this vaguely, as cobwebs still clung in my head. "Do you know why you're here?" she asked, her voice soft. I shook my head again, both in answer and trying to shake out the cobwebs. "Hmm?" "You're here," toy, "because you have been," toy "very" toy with the thing in her hand, "bad." She flicked the thing in her hand, and a small flame erupted from its end. A lighter. I blinked, struggling to focus on her. On the lighter in her hand. I tried to stand, but the world, the cave, spun around me. Something was holding me back, restraining my hands behind me. She was going on. "Do you know why you've been very bad?" She held the flame to something at her heeled foot. With a bizarre coolness, I settled down with a contented smile, as I stared at her slim calf. There was another small eruption. She held the flame to a thin wire, and it ignited. Slowly, like a sparkler drawn in the air, it sizzled toward me. She stood and trailed it. "Do you know why you've been bad, John?" Her voice held a manic lilt. Her heels clicked against the stone floor as the fuse hissed closer. Forty feet. I scrambled backward and hit something firm, and hollow, and full, all at the same time. I turned to see what I staggered into and flinched. XXX Barrels. Three wooden barrels with three painted X's. Jesus Christ. Fuck the metaphorical fuse. Darlene had been blasted off her rocker. Thirty feet. "Who's Tiffany, John?" Darlene's voice had taken on a higher pitch. More crazed. "Who. The. Hell. Is Tiffany?" My heart surged faster than the advancing fuse. Faster than the click. Click. Click of her heels. Who was Tiffany? I didn't know. Didn't care. A someone. A no one. A fling. "A freakin' fling," I said aloud. Oops. Twenty feet. Click. Click. Click. "Dar," I said, "you have to believe me. Don't do this. I love you." I tried pushing the barrels back. Shoving the wire aside with my foot. "You think I care, John? You think I fucking care?" She was yelling now. Her voice shrill, and feminine, and insane. Ten feet. My eyes were wide and wild with fear. I could smell sulfur. It smelled a lot like hell. She crouched in front of me, her blonde hair falling over her shoulder. She smiled. That pretty Darlene smile I used to know. I tried to scamper away as she embraced me. She sobbed in my ear. "If I can't have you, John. No one will." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fuse crawl behind the first barrel, and there was a brief pause. Click. Click. Click. The echo of Darlene's heels reverberated through my head like a ticking time clock—counting down. Fucking Tiffany. I awoke with the explosion. I rolled away from the pretty blonde beside me and checked my phone. There was a text from Darlene. “We need to talk.”

It was a dangerous relationship. Both for me and for him. Both, for different reasons. For him, I was a dark and wellbred thing. A person who was delicate and wild, a juxtaposition, a paradox. A question without an answer and an ellipses when a period should do. For me, he was a comma. A place to pause. There had been many commas. Many pauses. I had already met my exclamation point. My shout. My cry to love. He was the pause. I confess I didn't love the comma, who, in my self-loathing recklessness, I enthralled. I didn't mean to, to be fair. I did not set out to be the siren, him the Odysseus. He thought it cute, and curious, the part of myself that wanted to be damned. I was swimming with sharks while he was safe on the sand. I should have given him wax. Told his brothers to tie him to the mast. Sang him a song that led him away from me. The silly, dangerous, part for me was that he was only a comma, a pause, a mark on the page, a ,,,. I didn't hate him. I tolerated him with well-regards. He was the passing of time. The fun to my reticent heart. I didn't need him, the comma, the pause. I wanted the exclamation point. HAD the exclamation point, at one time. And no other man could be that for me. And, therein, lies the danger. The dangerous relationship. Hard pauses for me, and brackets for him. A moment in time. Moments in a sentence. Moments in life. He thought himself a Heracles. I was Persephone, searching for my lost Hades. I wanted the moon, he was only a shadow of it. It is said, a writer should only write two exclamation points in their lifetime. How sad. I’ve already had one.

I’m a nurse. They have protocols for things like this.

I am a nurse.

I cannot abandon my patients. It’s illegal. Let alone unethical.

But what about my family?

I don’t want to spend my last possible moments alive with total strangers.

What do I do?

What do I do!!

Ok. Stop. Pause a moment. Look. There’s a closet. Badge in. Good. Now you have a moment to think. It’s quiet. No hospital hustle and bustle.

Sit down. Think about this a moment.

If it’s the end, there will be no one to safety post you or report you for patient abandonment.

I’m not that brave. I can’t be stoic in this situation. I have to get out of here. We’re all dead anyway. Fuck the patients at this point.

Florence Nightingale would be so disappointed.

So how do I get out of here unnoticed? How can I escape this place without being pulled into the fray?

Be a patient. You’re AMA now. Get a gown. They can’t force patients to stay. Well, they can. But who would at this point?

Alright, stand up. Steady now. Deep breath.

You came in your scrubs. You need to look less worker, more patient. You know how to do that. Go to the clean closet. Grab a couple of hospital gowns and put them on.

There it is. The clean closet. Oh my God, there’s another nurse crying in here.

“You need to go home. Go to your family.”

She looks at me. “I can’t leave them.” She’s yelling above the alarms going off around us. I can barely hear her.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. I don’t think she heard me.

Whatever. I can’t save everyone. Now strip off your scrubs. Alright. Throw the gown on. Keep your shoes. You’ll need them. Don’t go all out. No one will notice you aren’t wearing the yellow slip-resistant socks anyway. Hopefully. Anyway, who cares at this point, right?

Open the door. You know how to get out. You’ve walked this path several times before. It’s familiar.

You don’t know anyone. Keep your head down. You don’t want the staff to notice you. They’re running like ants around their spoiled dirt castle. God, they really care about this place. I should care more too but I just want to be with my family right now.

Someone’s paging over the intercom. All available personnel. One time, I would have run towards that call. Now, all I want to do is get away from it.

I’m not a healthcare hero anymore. But no one will be around to remember that.

No. Don’t go to the employee entrance. Go to the front doors. That’s where patients would know how to get out. There. That door. That’s the quickest way to go. Badge it open.

Oh my God. There’s too many people out here. Everyone’s trying to get out. Looks like I’m not the only hospital worker trying to get out of here. There’s hospital gowns and scrubs all around.

That security officer has his work cut out for him. No one’s listening to his cries for order. He might as well just throw down his blow horn and get the hell out of here as well.

I can’t go this way. It’s too crazy.

Turn around. Try the employee entrance. Badge back in. Good. Now right. Walk straight out. No ones manning the doors. Of course. Who cares about temperatures now? Screw the pandemic. This is worse. This is the end.

I will make it to my family. Though hell should bar the way. Best not take the highway though.

What I’ve learned from death With a lower case “d” Because he took their last breath He gets no capital from me

He’s a motherfucker

Some went by cancer Some went by Covid It’s not even meaningful And we’re left with no answer

So fuck what death has to say What a cowardly witch All I have to reply

Is he’s a son of a bitch