The boy has blood-covered gauze sticking to his left shoulder. He lifts up the gauze periodically and I see three bloody holes in his shoulder. The look on his face just says it hurts and he is scared, but he is doing all he can do not to cry. I overhear his mother tell another woman that a neighbor’s dog attacked him. He waited two hours in that children’s emergency room, that room with wooden blocks and white fluffy clouds painted on the walls. Bright happy paint- it just seemed so empty next to the pain on this poor boy’s face.
I didn’t even notice the boy at first; I was caught up in getting my own charge settled in and making sure that he didn’t block the hallway. So busy that I didn’t even look at the other patients at The General. Blood. It hit me all at once. I had just noticed one mother because she was skin and bones and pregnant. Her face looked very tired and I just couldn’t help staring. She walked back past me and her son came into view. He was small, maybe four or five and the same Middle Eastern complexion as his mother. His hair was short and black and on his head patterns were carved in an elegant detail. The blood drew my eye in, right behind his left ear - a deep cut already starting to scab over. My eye followed the blood and I saw a light stain trickling down his neck. But the smile on his face- it just seemed so natural, genuine- whether he sat or stood and played- just played, no crying at all. It was a stark contrast to the older boy who seemed all too aware of the pain he was in. This little boy seemed oblivious to his injury. There was a third little boy as well with a cut on his head; he too didn’t seem to realize his pain.
Three hours I waited in the trying-to-be-cheery room watching the other patients disappear, feeling immensely guilty that my charge only had a sore throat and a fever and he shared the same space, same precious time with the doctors as these poor boys with their blood spilt for all to see.
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