for a preface, see the home page of my work stories: Paradise (aka The Job)
This past weekend, I had the privilege of being at a family reunion where I ended up in a game of pretend with some gradeschooler cousins. We were sneaking toward the "forest" - a bush and four trees on the neighbor's yard - when one girl held her pointer finger to her lips. "Shh," she whispered, then gestured at a tree stump. "Over there, behind that stump...is a bear."
"A beaaar?" I asked, doing my best to look fearful. As I was a guest on this adventure, I turned to the other girls. "A bear! What do we do?"
They didn't lose a beat. In fact, one of them shook back her angelic curls and drew an imaginary sword. "Get your swords, girls," she commanded. "We'll fight the bear." She held the invisible sword above her head and yelled, "Charge!!" to which the others roared battle cries and rushed to meet their foe.
I barely know these kids, but I was so proud of them in that moment. I'd follow those fierce warriors into battle any day. It was their ferocity that I thought of today at work, when I was needing some ferocity of my own.
The time: ten minutes to noon
The place: the Special Care Unit
The foe: Dragon Lady
Sometimes the lunch cart comes together a little more slowly than expected. Today was one of those days. The cart was completed about ten minutes before noon, which is a whole ten minutes later than usual. It couldn't be helped and I wouldn't apologize for such a small issue. I navigated the cart through the dining room and into the hall, aiming it toward its first destination. That's where I saw her: The Dragon Lady, pacing and snarling just inside the door of the Special Care Unit.
The eternal fire of rage was clearly boiling just under the surface, as indicated by her sour expression and the puffs of smoke that wafted involuntarily from her nostrils and ears. The glassy dead look in her ebony eyes bored into me while I was still some hundred yards away. The metal scales of her forehead tightened, narrowing her eyes into almond shaped sections of the abyss, studying my approach. I continued forward, not flinching at her appearance, but noticing my heart skipping a beat and adrenaline filling my veins, ready for fight or for flight. Somehow I dared to not only keep my head up and my eyes unflinching in her direction, but I dared to stretch my lips into a grin. I aimed for a hapless-cheerful-oblivious sort of grin - my own expression of fearlessness. The clock on the wall screamed TEN MINUTES LATE, which is heresy in the vaulted lair of the Dragon. The ticking of the clock might as well have been a chatty crow screeching my doom and cackling derisively. I reminded myself to breathe as I passed through the door to Special Cares.
I slowed the cart to a halt. I glanced at the Dragon and at her helpless coworker, looking grim and depleted. Then I turned on my heel and left. I walked all the way down the hall to the kitchen door, still in one piece, hearing no thundering beastly footsteps behind me.
No one had said a thing.
The Dragon Lady had not pounced on me to tear my flesh with her clawed words.
I mentally checked for wounds or missing limbs and found I was alive. I had stared down the Dragon and survived.This time, anyway.
I'm thinking of those warrior kids again. They'll someday find in the adult world there are many ogres and dragons and bears. I hope they keep their ferocity and bravery, daring to look terror in the eye and not flinch. Maybe they'll do even better than that: they'll draw their swords and go into battle and change for the better the landscape of the world that will be handed down to them.
Here's hoping. Fight on, gals.
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