St. Mary’s Call Room 403
Dr. G. laughed when colleagues refused to sleep in call room 403. The 4 East wing of St. Mary’s once housed pediatrics, then orthopedics, then maternity. They said people had heard things in 403—the rattling of long-gone nuns’ rosaries, a woman crying for her baby…
She didn’t believe in ghosts. Even if they were real, couldn’t someone have died in every room of the hospital? Didn’t every call room look haunted? They stank of old dust and bleach, with a sweet, roach powder undertone, and the shower stall curtains were stained with orange mold.
Dr. G. seldom got a chance to sleep, but she’d volunteer to take Room 403 when she was on. When she did make it to the call room, she’d fall exhausted into a REM sleep. She dreamt of doing CPR on her favorite patient as a student, kneeling on the edge of the bed for leverage, feeling a rib crack under her hands. She dreamt about willing her hands to stop shaking the first time she did a spinal tap: slow, full, damp breaths under her mask. She dreamt of standing in surgery in her third year of medical school, two months post-partum, breast milk leaking through her gown. She dreamt of the plastic surgeon who teased her because her left eye was lower than her right, something she’d never noticed. He said it in front of the nurses, “Easy fix. Botox.” As if she had time for that.
Dr. G did a lot of night shifts, with one colleague on maternity leave, and another recovering from surgery. The more she worked, the further she fell behind in her own life, even forgetting her own wedding anniversary. She was overdue for doctor’s appointments, her mammogram, and her routine colonoscopy.
The dreams worsened: an elderly man in a lower body cast, who shook his fist, “We routed the Kaiser!” then clenched his chest, and a girl with stringy blond hair, dark circles under her eyes. She thought about trying a different call room but discarded the notion as silly. She was just overworked.
One night, Dr. G admitted ninety-five-year-old Sister St. Catherine. “I ran old 4 East. I loved maternity, except when we lost a baby.”
Dr. G. did get some sleep that night, but at 2 a.m. she awoke, and found herself staring at a woman whose left eye was lower than her right.
The woman was thin. Too thin. Bald.
Michelle Morouse
Michelle Morouse’s work has appeared previously in Burningword and in various journals, including Third Wednesday, Vestal Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Gemini, Midwest Review, Prose Online, Bending Genres, Best Microfiction, The MacGuffin, and Unbroken. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. @michellemorouse.bsky.social
