Where Will This Heart Go?

He stares at the blips on the screen, sitting by her side, holding the hand of this woman who was someone else's mother. His other hand rests gently on her hair.

She looks worried. This was her first surgery in a long time, and she was afraid - she didn't speak much English, and many things could go wrong in theatre. How was she going to tell anyone then?

She can't feel a thing - the spinal anaesthetic had done it's job, but it was still disconcerting for her. Having a spinal meant that she would be awake for the surgery.

Hearing all the knocking and banging going on behind the green sterile screen didn't help as well, knowing that someone was drilling into her knee and chipping away at it with a sawblade - while not feeling a thing - that was surreal and scary all at once.

The skin between her eyebrows were furrowed with wrinkles from years of worrying. They deepened everytime he took his hand away from her head. Her grip on his other hand tightens with every noisy buzz of the saw.

She would require intermittent doses of medications to relax her, but they would wear off, and he tries his best to distract her.

"Senora, maybe you can teach me to count in Italian," he suggests.

"Okay," she says. "Uno, due, trie, quatro, cinque..."

"Uno, due, trie, quatro, cinque," he mimics.

"Seht, sehte, otto, nuove, deyes," she continues.

"Seht, sehte, ot..."

"Much longer, doctor?" she interjects abruptly. Her brows furrowed a bit more. "How many minuts? Five minuts? Ten minuts? "

"No, not much longer," he tells a white lie. "... otto, nuove, deyes! Now what's eleven?"

He learns to count to twenty ("venti") and learns the parts of the face (occhi, nasa, moca, lingua) but his distractions were only temporary before her mind would return to the reality of her operation.

"They're putting the stitches in your skin now, senora. Not much longer." It doesn't reassure her much, she wishes she could jump off the operating table and just go home.

He counts under his breath - "Uno, due, trie, quatro, cinque, seht, sehte, otto, nuove, deyes, undishi..." he hesitates.

"Diedishi, tredishi, quatrodishi, quindishi..." she continues.

"Alright, senora, all done!" The green screen falls and everyone in the theatre scrambles to pack up the rest of the things as they wrap her leg in a bandage and put it in a splint.

"Thanks you everybody," she gushes, relieved. "Thanksyou! God er... look-er for you, because, you er... look-er for me..."

He wheels her to recovery, hands her over to the nurse there, and walks back to the theatre slowly, his hand pensively brushing the surgical cap on his head.

He feels more fulfilled right now than he has all week, and wonders whether anaesthetics would still be the right choice for him.