Not Important

Mila

By the time I got off work on Friday, I was dead on my feet. I’d had a hell of a week. Sometimes it felt like the bad things that happened in threes to everyone else, piled up in infinite amounts for us at the ICU.

I drove home on autopilot, barely remembering how I got there. Despite the comfortable shoes I wore because I was always on my feet, my feet were sore, and I sat on my bed and gave myself a foot massage. It hurt more to work the knots out of my feet than it was relaxing.

I ran a bath instead of standing in the shower. I had to sit down. I couldn’t tolerate another minute on my feet without feeling like it was torture.

When I lay back in the hot water, I closed my eyes. The bath was deep, and the water lapped up to my neck, everything else submerged. This was the break my body needed.

But for my mind, there was no rest. The moment I closed my eyes, images flooded into my mind. The patients’ faces flashed before my eyes, and I groaned.

Yesterday, there had been a four-ca