The Queen

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  1. There are hierarchies in everything. In Asia, the children's game “King of the Hill” is referred to as “Monkey Mountain.”

    Dante had his circles of Hell, and, prior to the invention of the elevator, the best rooms in a building were not in the penthouse, but on the ground floor.

    Everyone else had to trudge up the stairs to get to their office, to their home, to the third-floor, rear apartment with a greasy cot and grimy windows that let in a little light, but no view.

    Hospitals have hierarchies. Not only the oft-ballyhooed divisions between doctors and nurses, between surgeons and lesser specialists, specialists and GPs, but between patients and standards of care.

    Requirements of care.

    In her first stay, she was way down towards the end of the hall, in a four bed room. She got one of the spots near the window until they opened her head to pull the alien growth out.

    But then the moved her, after surgery, to a room nearer the nurses' station, still by the window.

    The closer you are to the nurses' station, the more concerned they are about you.

    The quicker they can get to you if an emergency happens.

    Then she had some difficulties. Nausea, vomiting, generalized weakness.

    So they moved her nearer the door.

    That's the bed that has the emergency equipment for when patients aspirate their own vomit.

    The closer you are to the door, the more concerned they are about you.

    The quicker they can get to you when an emergency happens.

    But then they moved her to a new hospital. She's back where she started, near home.

    No, she's not. She started at home.

    But this was where she came first.

    The next hospital was where they did the surgeries. It's their specialty, but recuperation isn't, so they sent her back, because she's okay, she's, by all testable standards, okay.

    But she's not. She's all okay, except she's not okay.

    She's not getting better.

    And her new room is inside the nurses' station.

    Queen of the Ward.

    All hail.
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