It burns

Why would anyone inhale smoke willingly? Her mom always asked her that, her scolding mellowing down to a few quips here and there. She took a breath through the cigarette she had nursed for a few minutes, because the break was ending, and the people were screaming, and the night was long. She stubbed the end on the short wall, dusted her slightly itchy scrubs, and walked in. The moment the door opens, the voices grow louder and more agitated. The cries and wails and laughs, the threats and begs and desperate last resort attempts at bribing. It was overwhelming, but she dealt with it.
 
Her mom always asked her why she took such long shifts, because her mom didn’t know how hospitals work. She thought it possible to just walk up to a senior, tell them that you'd rather spend the night at home sleeping, and they would immediately give you what you want. Her mom insisted that her lifestyle would never land her a husband. As if that figured anywhere on the list of her priorities. She was on a streak of patients coming back for infected sutures, her favorite old man disappeared on her due to financial issues, and her coworker was harassing her with the vigor and persistence of a child unfamiliar with rejection. Pestering and annoying. Her plate was already full.
 
She indulged her a few times, going on dates with men that had the gall to ask her if she planned to leave her job once children are born. The job she spent 12 years working on. The job that sucked her soul dry. The job that thousands of people would kill to have. That job. For a crying squirming sticky thing that needed to latch onto her nipple for hours on end and shit their tiny intestines out. She entertained men that thought her to be arrogant and haughty. She was done with that, it only made the stressful work she had to endure more unbearable.
 
You’re a woman, you should’ve picked an easier specialty, one on par with your weak constitution, one that allows you the time for beauty sleep and childbearing.
 
Her hands were bloody with someone’s gore. She stank of cigarettes, she wanted another one. The patient screamed as she cleaned his wound. He was drunk and agitated, no anesthetic strong enough to numb him. He took those things for fun every night. She tried to be gentle, he moved his leg and smeared the blood all over her scrubs. The stitches were shaky. She was on her fourth cup of coffee. Her patient’s friend was ogling her body, calling her a nurse. Saying that she was too pretty for this. Leave the work to the doctor, won’t you?
 
A night shift like any other. The fifth cup is calling her name. 
 
When rush hour trickled down to a steady stream of able minded people, she left for another well deserved break. The cigarette was in her hand before the doors closed. No matter how hard it was, how overwhelming and painful, how draining, this is where she belonged. The adrenaline kept her alive, the feeling of omnipotence, holding people’s lives in her manicured fingers. She kept the nails short, but gave them some color for a change. She put on makeup sometimes too. She thought herself pretty. And smart. And exceptionally skilled with a scalpel.
 
Why would her dainty hands stop her from plunging to the elbows in someone’s abdomen?
 
If anything, it had more dexterity, and her sutures were works of art.
 
No children for her, after all.

Marwa Damaan