Dedicated to TMH

I always see the same security guard walking around my floor at the same time every night; checking the doors, turning off lights and shutting down Kliman Memorial Hospital's extended wings. He never speaks, other than the courteous head nod or occasional "Hello," and "Goodnight" that he may or may not give according to how his night is going.

He occasionally peeks his head into certain rooms to ask how things are to some of the patients, and he greets other passing hospital staff with the same gesture that he greets the Nurses Desk with as he passes them.

I try not to look too intently at him as he passes, I'm engaged with two kids, but the relationship that I'm in is rocky, and he's cute as all hell. I like the chin strap that outlines his square jaw line, and his stunning emerald green eyes; his clean shaped finger nails, and the little cow lick that he has in the front of his hair.

But one night I got caught looking...

"Hi." He said as I was staring out into nothing, but day dreaming about everything that I would love to do to him.

"Uh ... um..." I responded, because that's all I could choke out of my mouth.

"You ok?"

"Um yeah, just, I'm sorry, hi."

"You looked like you were stuck somewhere other than this boring lame hospital."

I giggled nervously, "Yeah, I was day dreaming. I need to get to my nightly routine so I can leave this boring hospital you speak of."

"I'm stuck until seven tomorrow morning, I can't leave just yet, but I would love to. I would love to be able to work somewhere decent where I wasn't working steady nights, but was by a woman's side snoring gently in her ear, but everyone has their wishes right." He stated softly.

His voice was actually very soft for a man of his stature. Not anything overly strange, he didn't sound gay or anything, but for a six foot tall muscle bound country boy, he didn't have any of the qualities in the vocals that you might think he would have.

"Well I'm going to get back to my rounds if that's ok, I will see you around."

... and with that he was back to his rounds and his nightly routine before I could even get my head together to ask him what his name was.

His shirt had a name tag on it that simply said "Kelly" but I'm assuming that was his last name and not his first, but I would have to ask later. I got up and finished my evening chores, I mean side work, and went about getting ready for the next shift to come in so I could go home and kiss my two little ones good night, since their father was there with them nightly for the bedtime rituals.

A week or two went by before I saw Mr. Kelly again, I'm not sure where he had been but I found myself kind of missing him and all of his features when I saw the replacement security guards come around every night to close down the hospital. One guy was chubby and short, the next looked like "Howdy Doody" And the other couple of guys were your everyday run of the mill security guards, so when I saw them instead of my "Mister Right," I was saddened and found myself missing him.

When he did come back, I found myself devising a plan to get him and me in an empty hospital room after hours, but every time I would find the courage to speak to him, my mouth would open and all that would come out was "Hi or hello" like every other day.

One night, I was outside smoking and to my surprise, a lot earlier than usual, the door beside me swung open and out pops "Mr. Kelly" to light up right next to me.

"How are you tonight?"

"Better now." I said with out thinking at all.

He chuckled and looked at me, "How so?"

That's when I realized I had said that out loud. "Fuck, I said that out loud didn't I?" My face was a blaze as I could feel the blood rushing to it.

"Such a dirty mouth for such a pretty lady."

And now he's correcting my language? I wanted to go crawl up into a ball and die as the embarrassment was written clearly all over my face.

"No need to be ashamed, it's just us, and I'm just making conversation."

"No, I'm sorry, really. Really, I'm sorry."

"It's ok. So how have you been? I haven't seen you. I was off for the last two weeks, my Aunt was sick, and I was the only family member around this area to be there for her, but she passed, so I came back to work."

"I'm so sorry to hear that." I said, "What was her sickness?"

"She had breast cancer, but she fought well and passed on even more gracefully if that were at all possible. She went in her sleep. But how have things been here at old Kliman Memorial?"

"The same old grind, just sick patients, and the "Groundhog Day" routine; the same thing day in and day out. I get sick of the same thing, I actually find myself wishing something traumatic would happen just to liven up my work day around here. I'm going crazy."

"Something will come up. Just be patient..."

And wouldn't you know; something sure did, and I was wishing it didn't afterwards!

About a week after that conversation, I was in a room with an older lady, and I was trying to replace her IV needle, and I accidently scraped a bone in her hand. I didn't mean it, and I was normally very good and very careful with my needles because I don't like being stuck with needles, so I don't figure anyone else does either. Needless to say, the lady didn't quite like that and she went off!

Not just any kind of 'off, ' but all of the way off the handle! She flipped completely out! She 'mother fucked, ' and 'cock sucked, ' and called me all kinds of 'bitches, ' 'cunts, ' and 'whores' just because I accidently stuck her, and no amount of apologizing was going to stop her. She tore out the IV, knocked over the stand with the computer for the IV, started ripping out chords from her body, and proceeded to try to destroy the room.

I hit the nurse's button for immediate assistance, and six nurses came to my side, so they could four points restrain her, and the fifth and sixth nurse were there to sedate her with some sort of serum so she could and would stop tearing things apart before she caused damage to herself or someone else.

As soon as everything was over and settled, I immediately ran out of the room, and to the nurse's station to clean up. I was covered in blood from head to toe, and my favorite pair of Tinker Bell™ scrubs was ruined. I had this lady's blood all over me, and I was black and blue on my left arm where she had grabbed me and held on with a death grip from hell while she screamed at me in point blank range. Fuck this job.