Date: Sunday, April 1st, 2018

Time: 5:45am

Location: Diego's Hospital Room, Shinjuku Heights Teaching Hospital

Become a doctor, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Med school is supposed to be hard, obviously; I knew that when I applied. I didn't think learning how to save people's lives would be easy. I just think it's interesting how they think putting medical residents on 24-hour shifts is a good idea.

You know how people always perform their best after pulling an all-nighter? Nothing like trying to do chest compressions, start an IV, or interpret imaging on zero hours of sleep.

It'd be like asking a commercial pilot to fly an airliner with 300 passengers with no sleep. I'm sure it happens all the time, but not by design. And then the hospital administrators wonder why doctors get burnt out and quit.

Ah well. 15 hours down and another nine to go. Hopefully, I can kill at least a half hour of that time in this zombie's room. I should really be out on the floor of the ER right now, assisting my preceptor with patients, but I needed to take a break from that sadist.

I swear, some of these doctors only get into the profession to cut people open. At least they have a healthy outlet for their sickness. The only time I see my attending get more pleasure than when he's stitching up a mangled body is when he's harassing me, talking down to me, or barking orders at me. Giving me pop quizzes and then calling me an idiot if I get anything wrong.

The nurses here are a lot nicer, but they can be kind of condescending too. Any time I try to put in an order, they override it, even if I'm right. I can hack it for another year though. By that time, I'll be their boss and they'll have to listen to me. I finish this placement in a month anyway. Hopefully the orthopedic rotation is easier.

I grip my coffee cup in both my hands and blow on it; too hot to drink, but I'm content to wait it out in here until it's bearable. I'm technically being a rule breaker right now, both for sitting in a random patient's room and bringing coffee in here. His mother and girlfriend had instituted a no coffee policy years ago and the unit was still observing it.

This guy was some sort of coffee aficionado in his waking life, and they didn't want to taunt him with his favorite drink. I don't know how anyone could be allured by the crappy cafeteria coffee they have here though. I've gotten used to it over the past year and a half, but it's weak as hell and often burnt. Besides, he's not conscious enough to be taunted anyway.

I'm not worried about being in his room either. This guy has been here for almost five years now and his care routine basically involves inspecting his tubing, checking his vital monitors, and turning him every few hours. I doubt anyone will walk in during the 30 or so minutes I'm here. His room is the perfect place to hide.

He's practically a legend at the hospital at this point. I've heard that the staff here even have a secret bet going to see when he'd wake up. If there was actually money involved, I wouldn't make a wager though. My guess is that he's never waking up and I'd have to wait a long time to see that bet pay out.

I feel bad for the guy though. Obviously for the multi-year coma, but also because his mom and girlfriend are dead now. I don't think anyone comes to visit him anymore. Must not have had many friends.

That girlfriend of his too? None other than Mia Fey, my ex-girlfriend from Ivy University. In a city as big as ours, I can't believe the chances of that happening. I guess there are only two teaching hospitals in the city but still.

Seems like Mia had a type, going from a doctor to a lawyer. If she was still alive, maybe she would have dated an engineer, a firefighter, or a pharmacist by now. I don't mean to sound blunt. It was really horrible what happened to her; I was horrified when I saw it on the news almost two years ago. I even cried. I wasn't entirely surprised though, as bad as it is to say.

She couldn't just let things go. The guy who killed her, he got what he deserved at least. He was arrested for her murder, and then got shivved during a prison riot a few months ago. It was that smarmy Redd White guy. The one who had all those cheesy tv commercials advertising his company. Still don't even know what that company did but it's closed now. Obviously, something shady because his accountant was arrested too.

I don't know how she got involved with him in the first place, but I assume it had something to do with her mom. Mia always wanted to find her again and to restore her reputation. Maybe she did that but, was it worth it? I haven't heard anything about a famous medium coming out of the woodwork since Mia died. Lost her life and for nothing.

I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if we had never broken up. I always tried to convince her to move on, and she said she agreed with me, but she'd never drop the issue.

We didn't live in that world though. I still kick myself sometimes over how I messed that up with her. I never thought a girl like that would look at me, much less date me for six months. I couldn't resist the urge to show my friends how much I had lucked out, but my gloating bit me in the ass and then she kicked it.

Maybe I deserved it, but her act of revenge just made me feel less bad about saving copies. I still had them on a thumb drive locked away in my desk drawer at my apartment. Proof that someone that hot had dated me. I couldn't look at them now that she was dead; it felt icky. I couldn't bring myself to delete them either. Schrodinger's nude pictures I call them; they both exist and don't right now.

Probably for the best we didn't work out. My fiancée isn't as pretty as Mia was, but she's cute, and a lot bubblier and more carefree than Mia. She comes from a normal family too, so she isn't likely to get involved with murderous psychopaths.

I'm supposed to go to her parent's place for Easter dinner after my shift, but we'll see if I have the energy for that. Her parents can be a lot sometimes, but her mom's a pretty good cook and they probably won't make me help clean up after my shift. They love that I'm a doctor.

The nurses here said that Mia was quite devoted to this guy before she died. She was even in here the morning before she was murdered and used to visit him every week. She did that for three years, which had to be longer than they even dated. I wonder what it was about him. He's tall, I guess. Full head of hair too. He looks so old though.

His chart says he's only 32, but I have a hard time believing it. I doubt his aging was all from the poisoning too. Avoiding the sun for five years probably should have made him age less, honestly. When I was on my dermatology rotation, my preceptor showed me UV photos of people's sun damaged skin and that finally convinced me to become a regular sunscreen user. Somehow skin cancer wasn't motivation enough for me.

God, this coffee is still lava hot. They must brew it with boiling water or something. I need to wake up soon though. Sitting down was a mistake, and I don't know if I'll be able to convince myself to get up without it.

I took the lid off the cup and blew on it again. Maybe I should have put cream and sugar in it like I wanted to; it would have been cool by now. With the amount of coffee I drink in a day, I was just trying to be healthy.

Screw it. I took a sip before spilling some of it on my white coat. Not a good look. I didn't spill it because it was too hot though. I spilled it because I heard a groan coming from the patient's bed. That's...not normal. This guy can breathe on his own, but he hasn't made a sound like that in almost five years. He just did it again.

I lidded my coffee and bolted out of there. "Nurse!" I yelled as I ran out of the room. I can't be the one to hold this guy's hand and explain his sad story to him when he wakes up. That is beyond my pay grade. I sent the nurse to go check on him and then started booking it to the ER. Looks like break time is over.