Mercury’s Lunchbox
The courier waits outside the O.R. A moment after a surgeon calls the time of death, a nurse emerges, hands her a container. He says, “Go!”
She hits a flat-out run. Courier and container speed in her van to the other hospital. Her supervisor radios warning: the patient’s chest is open. Four or five minutes are the bought time, but here’s a red light. Ninety seconds leeway when she’s met by fresh legs at the E.R.’s drop-off lane.
Before she hears if the patient survived, she’s picked up a container with a kidney in it.
Always urgent, never finished. Hurrying.
From Guest Contributor Todd Mercer
Todd writes Fiction and Poetry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His collection Ingenue was published in 2020 by Celery City Press. Recent work appears in Blink Ink, Literary Yard and Pangolin Review.
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