I'm just quietly thinking about my plan and all of a sudden, in comes this nurse, who looks as if she just graduated high school. She says that she's just been hired and she says that she has just graduated from nursing school with her B.sc., oh? I'm supposed to be impressed now!? She is asking some more of those silly questions, Goddess if you are listening, please send a good dose of patience my way. I tell her that I'm also a nurse, but please, shhhh, don't tell any, it has been known for ruining reputations! Yes, I used to practise too, but you see, when you are a practising nurse, you get immune to the pain of others, you learn to put yourself in a state of emotional suspended animation almost, you become a real cold person, and I tell her that is why I cannot practise, I never did learn that part and that is why I do not practise any more, but in all I did well at it. I remember I always took the time to listen to my patients, it was my way, even if we were short staffed that day, it was my way with the patients! I made it my business to make those people feel like they did count, like they were still human beings and not just a number that produced money for the nuns who were the owners of that institution. I used to be posted on the 5th floor ward, the alcoholic ward, like they called it. Yes, it was a men's ward, full of people that didn't give up the sauce in time and their brain cells died and never regenerated themselves again, what they term wet brains! and then there were those in vegetative states, they did call those the lettuce, just vegetables, according to the orderly on duty, but you know, in all the last thing to go is the ability to hear, so, I would be very careful not to say things in front of these people that would insult them, yes, I would talk to them as if I were talking to a friend. We were cautioned never to give our backs to these men, they were violent, but I thought that with kindness you get far and to this day I'll always remember those men, their misery, their lost manhood. There was this young lad on the floor, he was all of 31 years old, he had a job, a career to look forward to but one day he crashed against this lamp post and he ended up with a brain injury and was left talking as if he was not Billy Ray any longer, he didn't make sense, he'd just yell for people to fuck off, and to approach him we had to go with male orderlies to him, because one day he grabbed a co worker's finger and bit and wouldn't let go and the poor nurse passed out cold, and after an injection of heavy sedation he finally did and the girl was alright, she had to have stitches and was off work for a long period of time, but no one blamed him, he was injured and his life wasted in a hospital ward and in a diaper. When I did my rounds I remember looking at him and thinking that he didn't have a life any longer and often wondered what he'd done if he had never been injured. Now I'm thinking that I should be more kind with this nurse here, after all, I remember when I first started nursing, I too was apprehensive about things sometimes, so, now I show her my best smile and I'm not humming that little tune by The Doors any longer, I find my self cooperating with her! oh, no!! I've been had! I remember now how they used to send me to patients with an attitude and I'd calm them down. It's a damn trick!! I'll just show them, they'll see who is in charge here!! Even if next they were to send the big J.C. to see me, I'd send him to the USA on a mission to stop the death penalty and then I'd be in control here! No one cons me!! The plan!! put it in place now, got to do it quick, but oh my, I'm out of here as soon as possible! I'll show them people who is in charge here!!!

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