I got the job easily. Perhaps, too easily. I got my nursing degree in June and had been looking for a job for months. The medical field was overflowing with jobs and yet, I couldn’t seem to swipe one. Did they sniff my instability precariously addressed by daily Lithium and managed by a primary care physician who could care less? I was getting desperate. I couldn’t live in my mother’s tobacco smoke filled trailer any longer.
My cousin told me about Whispering Meadows. Deep in the Ozarks and surrounded by woods on one side and lake water on the other.
“They’re hiring nurses,” Molly said. “Constantly.”
Whispering Meadows was a trek and during tourist season, when the area became the Redneck Riviera, it would be crowded and clogged with traffic.
I submitted my resume and HR called me the next day.
“Would you mind coming in for an interview?” The voice sounded sweet and professional.
I met with Doreen. She was head of HR. “We have the worst of the worst here,” she said. “We’re a psychiatric facility.” She looked at me as if she was expecting me to run.
“No worries,” I said. I had an image of my mom sucking cigarettes in between oxygen tank spurts.
I started on Monday, filled out paperwork for an hour (benefits started on day one so I would be able to seek out a psychiatrist and get proper meds), and then was given a tour by Nurse Joleen. That was that.
My first day I handed out meds. A man named Dwayne took the tiny cup of pills from me and winked. I started breathing sharply and suddenly I was in a home with bulging doors and windows. A door burst and blood flooded in. I screamed.
“Are you alright?” Nurse Patterson was looking at me impatiently.
“Just fine.”
I gave another man his pills and I had an image of him digging a hole in the ground and a dead woman lying in the snow. He was digging her a grave. This went on. Each man who brushed my finger transported their thoughts, fears, desires, and hallucinations to me.
“Do you like working there?” Molly asked.
“I see too much,” I said. “I see too much.”
I went to a psychiatrist. “Hallucinations?” he asked.
“Plenty.” I was getting weary of all the foul thoughts. He gave me Seroquel on top of the Lithium and Buspar. When tourist season came, I swallowed all my pills and plunged into the murky water of the Ozarks. A fisherman found me. Bloated and blue.
Whispering Meadows had lost another nurse and Molly was devastated. She pleaded with HR.
“What was wrong with her? Did she show any signs?”
The head of HR sighed. “Mental illness is difficult. Your friend did fine for a short while. But I don’t think she was meant for the world. No patient here is meant for the world. Just because you are granted life does not mean you can live it.”
THE END
[amazon_link asins=’0375701478′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’200wordshort-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’1de818a6-6b6c-11e8-9010-5734bea8aebc’]