They say your heart is beating too slow. They have you connected to the heart monitor and every time you drop below 40 beats per minute it starts beeping and someone has to hit a button on the screen to silence the machine until you drop below 40 again, but you never go higher than 45 and most times drop just above 30. You ask me to ask the nurse if there’s any way to turn off the beeping. He’s standing right there, writing numbers on the whiteboard above your head, but I ask him anyway. “Is there any way we can turn off this beeping?”

Originally published June 30, 2014 in Storychord, Issue 85.

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