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Lena

I wake up in a recliner that wasn’t made for recovery—it was made for appearances. Something between a spa lounge and a corporate nap pod. There’s a blanket over me. White. Weighted. My mouth tastes like metal and gauze and something else—something rotting.

I blink a few times until the room comes into focus.

Across from me, another patient shifts. A man. Mid-fifties. The one from the waiting room. He’s snoring lightly, mouth open. His chin and neck are crusted with dried blood.

A nurse walks by and gives me a bright, practiced smile. “You’re awake. That’s great. Just rest a bit longer. Everything’s on schedule.”

I try to respond. Regret it instantly.

Pain shoots through my jaw like a lightning bolt.

Jazz plays faintly from somewhere overhead. I think it’s jazz. It might just be the blood rushing behind my eyes.

There’s pressure all along my lower gumline. A dull, blistering throb like something foreign has been stitched inside me. When I shift, I feel blood pool in my cheek. I tilt my head and it drips—warm and slow—down my chin, soaking the blanket.

No one reacts.

Eventually, another nurse comes by. She pulls the gauze from my mouth like she’s wringing out a rag, then replaces it with something even thicker. “Don’t swallow if you can help it,” she says, without looking me in the eye. “We don’t want it to settle in the graft.”

The graft. My mouth spasms around the word. I should have done more research, should have been smarter. I should have said no.

I signed the thing, completed the intake forms, but I didn’t think they’d actually—do it. Not like this. Not with me awake. It’s not just my mouth; it’s like my whole body’s been…changed.

I can’t make sense of it. I can barely breathe without it hurting.

Across from me, the man stirs. He tries to sit up and fails. His face is pale. There’s a bucket by his chair he’s trying to reach, but he misses. Blood and bile spill across the floor.

He meets my eyes briefly—long enough to register something like an apology.

A nurse rushes over. “Oh no,” she says, like someone spilled wine on the carpet. “We’ll get this cleaned up.”

A new nurse replaces my gauze again. This time it sticks. When she pulls it out, something comes with it—a long, yellow-white strand of what might’ve been tissue.

I flinch.

“Oh, that’s normal,” she says, tucking it into her palm like a magician concealing a trick. “Your mouth just needs time to adjust to the graft.”

The graft.

I try to ask how long that’s going to take, but all I can manage is a groan.

Across from me, the man stirs again. This time he gets partway upright—then slumps. His head jerks forward. His arm spasms once, then seems to lock.

He starts making a sound I’ll hear for the rest of my life. It’s not a choke. It’s not a scream. It’s like a straw sucking the last of something thick.

One of the nurses looks up. “That doesn’t sound great,” she says, as if it’s none of her business.

His body jolts once. Then again. A wet, gurgling snap. It looks like a seizure to me, but the nurse yells, “heart attack!”

Someone shouts for a crash cart. Another opens a drawer and pulls out a stethoscope, inspecting it like it’s an antique.

A man in scrubs jogs in, paddles in hand.

“Clear,” he says.

The shock lifts the man an inch off the recliner.

“Again.”

Nothing.

“We’ve got...something,” someone says, like it’s no big deal. “But it’s faint. How many times should we do this?”

The man’s eyes stare, wide open.

“We could be here awhile,” another says. “A lot of paperwork.”

One of the nurses sighs, glancing at her watch. “Well, we tried.”

Another nurse leans in, whispers something to the paddles guy. He nods like he’s done for the day.

They turn off the machine. Cover his face with a blanket. Start wiping the floor.

“We’ll need to sanitize and reassign this chair,” one says.

“Make a note to order more gauze,” says another.

I’m not sure how this is supposed to work. But no one even records the time of death.

My throat makes a sound I don’t recognize. Not quite a sob. Not quite a word.

They don’t even glance my way.

A few minutes later, the body is gone. So is the chair. So is the bucket.

A receptionist walks in holding a tablet.

“Hi,” she says brightly. “I’m just doing follow-ups.”

She glances at the chart, then at me. “You helped him with his intake forms, right? In the waiting room?”

I nod. Then instantly regret it. Pain shoots through my skull.

“We’re just wondering if maybe he mentioned any conditions. Allergies? A pre-existing heart condition?”

She smiles. “Sometimes things get missed.”

I can’t answer her.

“What I’m looking for,” she continues, “is anything that might have helped us avoid this…”

She taps something into the tablet without waiting for me to reply. “Perfect, then. Thanks for your time.”

I receive my discharge paperwork. At the bottom, someone’s written:

Compliance: 98%

Recovery Estimate: 12–18 hours. Return to work Monday.

Thank you for your contribution.

Contribution.

I taste copper, gauze, and something sour that’s closer to shame than regret.