Hospital Fugue

A dark-haired girl in a bed across from mine had inhaled a chunk of apple —lodging it like a runaway kite in the papery tree of her lung. Then it was fished out, in surgery, with a thin tube, like the red magnet my father lowered on a string—after the baby, jowled and mad as Potemkin, hurled the house keys down the grate, thrilling to their metal music, their jangled fall, their echo of heavy doors, strained tones, the adult voice of fate.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research