A discovery

V. Bearing is lying in her hospital bed reliving memories of her years in academia; the young student whose grandmother died and she treated so harshly. She experiences pangs of anxiety and fear. She reaches down to her iv line and she has discovered that she can occlude it and get an instant response from Susie in her nursing station. Rather than ask for the company; she slyly summons Suzie with this bit of duplicity. Susie is not aware that Vivian has done this; she assumes that the occlusion of the iv line is a transient spontaneous thing; she comments that "they sometimes get blocked". Perhaps other patients have tried this tactic before to summon kindness and comfort in order to deal with the fear and anxiety and pain.

I remember your eyes were bluer than robins' eggs. My poetry was lousy you said...