Blood Pressure Cuffs (unedited)

The loud blood pressure alarm drone filled my ears, and its yellow siren shimmer tracing the small, emergency room ceiling bored my eyes with its rounding repetition as I sat, slumped smashing the hospital bed’s thin, white pillow.

I gathered from the three times I had visited this upstate New York hospital, the nurses could turn off the alarm either in the room or from the nurse’s station, so the long audio aggravation meant no one was there.

When I came in the second time, my fiance Jake pressed the turn off alarm button glaring on the touch screen behind my head.

When I was alone due to COVID regulations and hooked to an IV and other snaking wires and protocols, I couldn’t rise and turn it off myself.

I don’t know what time it is or how long I have sat here. The room has no clocks. And, I was rushed in the ambulance here early this morning before I had accessorized with wig and watch. My cell phone is still plugged into my bedroom wall lying on the bed stand among a few empty inhalers, a mason jar half filled with water, and tissues.

I sit, lonely with only machine songs of how I may have had a heart attack, the chalky taste of baby aspirin, the pain in my lower back from hard coughing, and hunger gnawing as I wait for the tests to return so I may have a tuna or peanut butter and jelly sandwich I assemble myself with plastic knife and plastic wrapped bread.