You can tell the ones who work the night shift.
Their bodies move slowly, bathed in the yellowish amber glow of neon. Exhausted by the day and drained by fear, they seek refuge beneath the glass and steel that – at this moment – is their home.
Their faces betray them. Their smiles have given way to pain. They are pale and gaunt with dark eyes and hollow, almost lifeless expressions. This is not their true being, mind you, just the mask of wear and worry assigned them by the night shift.
They have no time for fun or laughter. Under the steel and glass there is no smoky jazz club, no the out-of-the way bistro. Here, instead are the operating theaters and the nurses’ stations, their walls covered in drab paint. Here is the worn tiled floor, the proof of a billion footsteps.
This is the night shift.
Those assigned didn’t seek the task – it found them. Once the decision was made – surgery, hospitalization, medicine – they were placed in the cue like so many others.
Many were not prepared, but they came just the same. They are not here to do, but to endure, and to simply exist.
The night shift begins as the Oklahoma sun sinks beneath the horizon – scattering crimson and pink and yellow and orange over a vast expanse of sky. Misled by the evening’s beauty, those on the night shift are poised between two worlds – reality and anguish.
They have embraced the darkness because a child – their child – has needs which outweigh everything else.
So they come here.
And they work the night shift.
•
The air is warm and moist, infused with the faint scent of clover, the smell of earth, and aroma of fast food. Inside the steel and glass, a lone worker polishes the terrazzo to a high gloss.
For him the night shift is life. He says little but his eyes shine with a softness that begets understanding. He has watched those on night shift come and go for years. He knows how they feel.
He has played witness the pain and terror and raw, visceral fear. Years ago, he himself was assigned the night shift after an accident at home.
The janitor knows the night shift can be cruel and hard and even inhuman. It can bring pain and suffering – and death. But it’s also necessary. Surgeons and medicine need the night shift; they embrace it like a mother suckles a newborn.
The man understands this. He’s watched hundreds shuffle across his floor, exhausted. His warm face and soft smile spawn tiny seeds of hope; for just as the night shift brings pain, it also knows that even beauty and peace can be found while crossing the pathway of polished terrazzo.
•
For the father, the night shift is almost overwhelming. Single but with a child, normal no longer exists. Daylight has, as always, required hard work. But here in the shadow of the capitol, the father’s arms hang weary and soft and useless
His child, in pain, struggles.
The father embraces the young boy. The angry red scars on the boy’s chest offer a stark contrast to the father’s strong, muscular limbs.
The father is frustrated. As a parent, one who works with his hands, he seeks to bend or rent or break or twist something to make reality return. But on the night shift, physical strength fades quicker than the brush of a first kiss.
And for the first time, the father has come to realize that his son’s fate rests not with him, but others.
Here on the night shift, time and darkness often conspire to strangle hope. The father slumps. His aches are temporary, he tells himself. His worry rests with the child.
•
Like the cleaning man, the nurse is well known to the night shift.
Years ago she embraced the darkness, hoping to bring light. Daily she’s fought and worked and pushed back the darkness. And though she can claim victory on occasion, here on the night shift, the odds favor her defeat.
Still she remains. For her, the night shift can bring healing and quiet and, if the fates allow, a moment of peace.
•
The small boy struggles.
His days have been filled by visits from tall men with stern faces in white coats. He has been poked and prodded and moved and stuck and tested until his tiny, frail body is bruised.
He no longer plays. The confines of his small bed have become the universe, his beloved dog a distant memory. His scars offer proof of the stern faced men’s work, and of the child’s courage.
For this child, the night shift brings monsters – evil beings that were, until this moment, felled by his father. But on this night the monsters are large and menacing and even the boy’s father is powerless against them.
•
Just after midnight the night shift claims two victims – one, abandoned; the other, mourned. Children aren’t supposed to die. They are supposed to play and laugh and have sleepovers and complain about homework.
But the night shift offers no guarantees and death is always at the ready.
•
The muscular father takes the small boy in his arms. His pushes his tanned, weather beaten face against the child’s cheek. The small boy nestles closer. The monsters have faded. The boy is stronger.
For this small family, the night shift offers a pardon and passage back to that which is normal. The father, though weary, understands this and offers his benediction to the Almighty.
Heaven remains silent, but the father’s supplications were heard.
•
Long after midnight – but well before sunrise – a doctor returns. His patient, a small newborn, has beaten the odds and refused to give in to the night shift.
The child, though tiny, is strong.
The doctor, though exhausted, is willing.
•
Some parents don’t survive the night shift. The stresses are too great the emotion and pain and stuffing too huge. These parents emerge bent and twisted. Their faith broken and their relationships wrecked.
Like raw steel, the night shift can be hard and unforgiving. But others, those who carefully walk the balance of faith and fear, survive. They pray and struggle and, in the end, turn their faces into the wind.
Like the cleaning man, the nurse and the doctor, mothers and fathers who have worked the night shift, understand its necessity.
They are the ones who know that pain cannot stay forever. And trouble, they say, was born a Gypsy.
Some parents worked more than one night shift. They are the true warriors. They have girded themselves with knowledge and hope. They have the experience and understanding – and patience – to survive the summons.
They are the parents who know that even with the pain and death and suffering the night shift can bring, hope must follow. They know scars will fade and, in spite of fear, life will continue.
They believe.
Outside the window, the light of the red Medicine sigh fades. The first rays of the sun scatter across a periwinkle sky. Morning returns and day pushes the night shift back.
Some on the night shift are granted pardon. Others will continue and new recruits always arrive.
But even the brightness of the day and even there, under the warmth of the sun, the night shift awaits, embracing those who are forced to live in its darkness.
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