Waiting for the other shoe to drop by Jessie

Living here, I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop. A sense of unfocused dread and fearful anticipation strikes at the most unexpected moments. Every knock on the door – is it a guard, calling me to the hospital because a child is about to die? Footsteps on the path outside – are they coming near our house, are they climbing the cement steps to our door? I stop whatever I am doing, perched, alert, waiting for the sound to come closer or to fade away, waiting to see what catastrophe is waiting outside. I hear the sound of wailing at night – is it the monkeys howling, dogs fighting, or is it maybe drunks fighting in town, or a fire, one of the straw houses burning down with all the people inside trying to rescue their belongings, will the bloodied and burned patients come to our health center? I wake up from a dead sleep – did I hear a noise? Was it a knock at the door? Is that wind or is it an ululating death wail down at the hospital? A bleeding mother. A dead baby. An unconscious and seizing patient. Tetanus, meningitis, appedicitis, obstructed abdomen, third degree burns, open gushing gaping wounds. No IV access, poking, searching, external jugular, Edwin can you get a line in. No surgeon. No blood transfusion. No lab. No money. No transport. No second opinion. Fight or flight kicks in. A constriction around my stomach. Heart pounds harder, hands tingle, muscles tighten, vision becomes sharp and narrow. Here we go again. I should have known better than to let my guard down for even a minute.

But. Half the time it isn’t really a knock on the door, it’s just a big bird landing on our tin roof. The footsteps outside are Emily returning to her house. The nurse just needs me to unlock the pharmacy and get out some more IV medicine. The howling in the dark is an unknown, unseen animal, and my sudden fearful waking is just that, just fear. My muscles relax and my senses soften. I feel the pounding of my heart and feel silly, getting all worked up like that for nothing.

But even then, I know. I know that sooner or later it won’t be nothing. Maybe next time the other shoe will drop. And despite the implication that the shoe can only drop once, it will drop again and again and again. One disaster does not grant immunity from another. Each day that passes without a catastophe is a relief and a triumph, because every day is water under the bridge that cannot return, it is sealed and done. Every day, I am one day closer to home. I only have to worry about tomorrow.