[ RF ] `` No , I 'm sorry . I 'm done . I ca n't , not anymore . ''

His name was David Smith, he sat inside the emergency room on his 24 hour shift drinking another cup of coffee. His elbows to his knees and his head focused on the floor. I walk up to him and sit down beside him. 
 
 `` Why do you think we are doing this?'' I looked a near by vending machine and watched as an orderly attempting to jimmy out a muffin. `` I think, it's to give hope. The hope that someone in these rooms is strong enough to help people and continue doing so.'' 
 
 `` Thats a load of shit,'' He shook his head and looked at me, ``'To give hope?' That is a fucking cop out. I'm sorry your still a little green Monty Asher, but that is what young doctors say to keep themselves together.'' 
 
 His eyes stared into me and I could feel the burning sensation they emanated from his mind. He took another drink of his cup and sat back. I wanted to say something but I could n't find the words. 
 
 `` When you were in school, I was told'you will always find the moments in your career that will make or break you' and its up to you to find something to hold on to. Although, when I see all these `` others'' I work along side with,'' He put his cup down to emphasize'others', and started digging around in his pocket for something, `` I can feel the fuckin' cop out and droning within their work.'' 
 
 `` Well, I always..'' He stopped me and looked me in the eyes. 
 
 `` You wait, give yourself a few more years and a few more situations.'' He stood up and pulled out a small cartridge, he popped it open and closed it again. He started to walk outside. 
 
 `` Where are you going?'' I ask, cause I could feel the conversation is n't over yet. 
 
 `` To take my 5 minutes.'' I got up, grabbed his cup, and followed him out. When we walked outside the doors, the EMTs were putting the gurney inside their truck and he was standing there watching them wipe up the red pool beside the cabinets. There was one woman sitting with her back against the wall of the truck, she looked like she was sobbing. He took a deep breath and rolled the cartridge in his hands. 
 
 `` What the fuck are you doing with that cup? You should have left it in there.'' He glanced at me and kept his focus on the woman. `` You see her?'' 
 
 He pointed, then folded his arms, and watched her. I replied with a half cocked answer, `` Yeah?'' 
 
 `` When she came in here, I remember her, when she started she was smiling and optimistic. Perhaps that was me projecting off her, but when I see her come through these doors, after a half a year, she looks like a terrified puppy.'' She knew we were looking at her and wiped her face. She moved around and pulled the gurney further in. `` Today, was the worst day of my career. The absolute, shit show, of a day of my career.'' 
 
 `` It could n't be helped...'' I tried to interject. 
 
 `` It could have been, thats why I am here, thats why I got all this training and education. It was suppose to be helped, but I could n't. It started out by loosing an elderly woman. Mrs. Fredricks, from the'whispering fields living center'. She was a decent lady, when she came in the always had cookies! The fucking staple of a kind older woman. She died from a fever that elevated to pneumonia from her days working in a mill. Then, it was Mr. Reeds. A Long time Police officer for the city, and he left two kids behind with a wife. He was shot doing a routine call to West Parks. Then, it was Eddie Baumgartner. The fucking desert shop owner, he used to get in his ice-cream truck in the summer and sell sweets to children.'' 
 
 His focused on his cartridge, It's been a rough night. He was 22 hours in on a 24 hour shift. What happened was, he got ICU attending for the night and was batting a 16 hour day with no fatalities. Then, he met the slope. It's a term we used here when your coming up from the second rotation of the clock's 12 hour cycle, when time seems to go against you. He was one of the best in the hospital. Everyone knows he can do a 24 hour, and yet, tonight was different. 
 
 `` You know, tonight felt funny. When I walked into those gates of reality, I did n't know what I was actually expecting today.'' He was staring at the doors, and looked back at the EMT. `` She probably wo n't sleep tonight.'' 
 
 `` Why?'' I say looking at him and her, like there was an understanding that they shared but I have n't reached yet, a lesson that was coming for me. 
 
 `` Death creates tombstones in your mind, and change the way you see things around you. Like, when you were a kid an your pet died in a cage, bowl, or perhaps on a sidewalk. You see that place no longer as a housing or just another curb, but a place of significance to you because a life ended there. Now you could say I'm comparing humans to animals, but how are we not? We hunger, we mate, and we live like any other creature on this earth, but we have a larger mental range of understanding. When I see the front foyer of the admittance, I can remember them picking an older woman up and placing her on a gurney. They took her into the E.R. but everyone knew.'' 
 
 He was pulling out one lone cigarette from the cartridge he was holding, there was a box of matches in there swell. It felt almost ceremonious as he moved the cigarette and lit it. 
 
 `` Emma Fredricks. Ollie Reed. Eddie Baumgartner. Joel Valrine. Did you know Joey? I got a picture from his catalog he took from a travel he did in the Himalayas, he said'When your walking in the cold, you can feel it all over and no matter how much layers you wore. Yet, it reminded me of total serenity'. He died shortly after Eddie did. Then, those two kids, Calvin Wilson, and his sister, Samantha Wilson. The car accident from yesterday.'' He went quiet. He took a puff of the cigarette. Then, stared at me. 
 
 `` Are you okay?'' I say looking at him. 
 
 `` No,'' He smiles with some smoke coming out of his mouth, and his eyes welling up, `` I'm not okay. I'm batting 12 for 22 tonight in my ICU. Then we lost these five in the E.R. Two of them, a mother and child, under my calls and super vision, pass away. While the other, a gang member and the perpetrator survives.'' 
 
 He walked away from me, I just stood there for a moment holding his cup, and I watched him smoke his cigarette. 
 
 `` You know why I say,'wait until you have your moment?' Because, I seen doctors way better than you fold under this. I've seen some TANK!'' He was shouting as he walked away further. `` You know what I hold on to here? My stats: how many fatalities, what was my pay, hours, and who am I working with. All of it. It's what I tried to tell myself for years,'this is what our career is' and'it's for a better life'. FOR WHAT?! An empty six bed room house, with a three car garage, a 200k living room set and entertainment center, a... What are those called, ah.... a fucking... restaurant equipped kitchen!? I have first world problems because I sold my empathy.'' He was n't even a quarter finished with the cigarette when he stamped on it and walked back towards me, his voice lowering. `` Tonight is different, because now I am scared. Now out of those 12 patients I have left, seven of them are children. I have two hours left, I need to sleep for a few hours, but I do n't even want to go home or can stop from thinking about them.'' 
 
 Just then his beeper went off. He mouthed the call, and bolted back towards the door. When he got on the elevator, I thought him pressing on the button was going to destroy it and he even punched it a couple of times, thinking this would make it go faster. I followed him and watched as he walked into a unit with a child in the bed. I instantly could feel the pressure and the emotion he was talking about. He did n't think for a moment, he went to work. As he ordered everyone around him, he focused on getting her heart pumping again. He tried. Then, tried. Finally, she started beeping. Although, as he walked out the door, she coded again. After 10 minutes, and them having to pull him off her, they pronounced her gone. Her red curly hair got undone, and she looked serene. 
 
 `` FUHHHH,'' He started to shout as he walked out, `` UUUUHHHHHHHHHHACCCCK!'' He threw his gloves off. I seen him walk towards the break room. Some of the nurses came out to talk, and then one of the other first years came up to me. 
 
 `` Is Doctor Smith going to be okay?'' He said with an accent. 
 
 `` I'm sure.'' I replied back to him. 
 
 He must have looked at me cause I was staring at the hall way Dr. Smith just walked down. `` Are you going to be okay, Asher? Are you going to make it today?'' 
 
 `` No, I'm sorry. I'm done. I ca n't, not anymore.'' After that, I walked to the dressing room and cleared out my locker.
