“I’m Healthy”

On the way home from the hospital I wait for the bus. My day was longer than I would have liked and it’s dark. My fatigue is stacking and somehow this blunts the paranoia that normally would have me avoid public transport after hours. Not ideal, but it can’t be helped tonight.

A stranger approaches me- he’s tall and sizing him up weighs easily double what I do. Being alone, I stiffen and cross my arms. “Oh I was just hoping to ask you a question… I just took the train here, you think I need to purchase fare again?” My guard goes down, if only a little. We talk.

“You work at the hospital?” he asks, gesturing to my scrubs.

“Yeah I do.”

“You must see a lot of sick people there… with that coronavirus, right?.”

A pregnant pause.

“You could say that.” My lips purse as I think about how I could ever distill the still-present horror of COVID into a pithy reply.

“…Did you get your vaccine?” I say, gesture to my arm and tap twice.

“No ma’am. You know, I know I should but I’m scared. I heard of people dying after they got it.” Avoiding eye contact with me now, he shuffles. Almost bashful.

“Naw… All I got is asthma and seizures. Chickenpox, measles, never got vaccinated for any of that and I’m fine. See I may be a senior but im healthy.”

My mind flashes to the glass rooms I stood outside just a few hours before. My patients, face down, delicately draped in hospital gowns. Pictures of loved ones and hand-drawn “get well soon” cards on the wall. A ventilator hisses rhythmically in the background.

You are “healthy.” So were they.