Chapter Five

Three years later……….

Ben knotted his shoelaces and made his way to the kitchen. He goes to the fridge and opens it. He scans the scanty fridge and immediately finds what he is looking for; milk. He takes the can of milk out and shakes it to know if there is still any milk left it in or if it was just air, and much to his delight, there is still milk.

He pours it into a cereal bowl and adds cornflakes. He briefly sits on the kitchen stool, gulps down everything in less than two minutes and picks up his car key, heading out immediately.

His late mother's car is parked in the parking lot, but he doesn't use it, instead, he walks towards a 2023 Toyota Corolla model, opens it, gets in, and speeds off.

Fireworks by Katy Perry is playing on the radio, and he hums along as the cool breeze grazes his face.

Life had turned out as he had wanted it to. He had finished school, finished his residency, written and passed his license exams, and now, he was working as a surgeon as Billywood's hospital, Chicago. He was an active earner who even barley had time for himself, but he was okay.

He drove into the hospital's parking lot and alighted from the car.

“Good morning Dr. Hills”, nurse Elizabeth greeted him as he walked past the reception area.

“Good morning, nurse Elizabeth. How're you doing?” He asked with a smile.

She sgrugged, “feeling like I could use a three weeks all expense paid vacation, and you?”

“I can definitely use the same”, he replied with a pout.

“Dr. Hills!” A little boy ran to him and hugged his legs.

“ Little Yonas! How are you doing this morning?” He was beaming harder with smiles, so much that his lips might tear.

“I'm fine!” The little boy happily echoed.

“How's your tummy now? Does it still hurt?”

The little boy shook his head, “no!”

“That's great. By the way? Why are you out here by yourself? Where is your mommy?”

The little boy turned and pointed at a blonde woman talking with another lady there in the lobby. The mother saw her child pointing at her and she excused herself from the lady she was talking to and walked to both Ben and her child.

“Good morning Dr. Hills”, the lady greeted with a happy smile.

“ Good morning Mrs Smith. Yonas here tells me that he's now doing well”, Ben said.

“Yeah. We were even discharged just this morning. We'll be heading home later in the day”.

“That's good to hear”, he bent to the child's height, “now buddy, when you get home, make sure you be a good boy, okay? And don't go eating anything your mommy kept for the rats, if not, you're gonna come back here and stay for a while, and these nurses are gonna pinch you with that little needle. I'm sure you don't want that now, do you?”

The boy shook his head vigorously.

“Good. Then you have to be a good boy and listen to your mommy, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Great. Now give me a high five!”

He and the boy clapped their right hands together and Ben ruffled his hair.

“Thank you doctor. For everything”, Mrs Smith said with a smile.

“No problem, and do keep an eye out for this little one. He might look little, but he sure is an old man already”.

Mrs Smith burst into laughter, and Ben chuckled a bit.

“I will, doctor”.

“Okay. Bye”, he waved at the little boy and went on his way.

A few other nurses and patients greeted him as he walked to the elevator, and he returned their greetings with a smile.

He got into the elevator, and just when the doors were about to close, a hand appeared out of nowhere and stopped the moving door, after which a middle aged Phillipino nurse peered into the elevator.

“Ante Lia”, Ben smiled.

“Dr. Hills, how're you doing?” She asked, getting into the elevator as the doors closed.

“I'm doing fine. How about you?”

“To be frank, I'm not, but I gotta be here you know. If we nurses don't care for the patients, who will? I bet it won't be those colleagues of yours who think they're on top of the world all because they've got a medical degree. They've got a medical degree, but they sure can't diagonize a patient without the help of a nurse. Proud buffers like them”.

Ben laughed at this, holding himself from falling to the ground and rolling.

“Ante Lia, you can't blame them that much. After all they've been through in medical school, you can't help but understand their actions”, Ben defended his colleagues.

“Well, I bet I don’t have to, since I just went to nursing school and said to them “hey, I wanna be a nurse, so just give me the certificate and scrub me into any hospital”. Sure, it was as easy as that for us”.

“Now you're going too far”, Ben said with a chuckle.

“You're the one defending those crack heads who don't even care about you. And look, you also went to medical school, didn't you? Not just any medical school, but Howard University medical school, and you don't behave like them”.

“Well, they'll change. Soon”.

“I hope they do, because it ain't gonna be easy for any of them if they get on our bad side. And I bet they haven't told you about the new development?”

“What new development?”

“We're getting a new director, and I heard it's the chairman's son”.

“ What? The chairman's son is a surgeon?”

“A good one. I heard he even went to your school, Howard. So probably you might even know him”.

“Probably. I never really knew people that much back then in school. But wait, how do you know all of this?”

“You see what I told you? Those crack heads don't care about you. They were the first to know about this, and yet they hid it from you. You had better stopped defending them and join our team”.

“Oh, so it's a war now is it?” Ben asked jokingly.

“Not yet. But it sure will be if time is not taken. That's by the way. You're on call?”

“Yeah, I am. I think Dr. Herrick is also on call”.

“Sure. They always put you two together because they know that Herrick doesn't know what he's doing”.

The door beeped and opened.

“Oops, this is me. See you later doc”.

“Have a nice day Ante Lia”.

Ben stopped by the notice board before going into his office. He had one surgery that morning. An appendectomy. After which all the doctors from the various departments will gather at the conference room to meet the new director, and then he'll go on to perform his other surgeries.

He scrubbed in quickly and headed to the theater. The patient, a young boy of about 16-18 years, was already put under anesthesia and was basically drowsy.

Ben quickly did the surgery with the help of the residents that were assisting him. Just two residents. The surgery was a simple one, and within less than an hour, he was done.

He got out of the theater and just as the time for meeting the new director approached, he headed to the conference room.

Other doctors were there already, seated and sharing small talk.

Ben saw Herrick sitting in the middle row and went and sat beside him.

“What's up?” He said to Herrick.

“Cool man. You smell like blood”.

“Just got out of surgery. What else should I smell like? Honey?”

Herrick rolled his eyes and turned and started speaking with another doctor.

“Why am I just finding out that we're getting a new director?” He asked Herrick after he was done talking to the other doctor.

“Because we all also found out?” It sounded like a question, and Ben immediately deciphered that he was lying through his nose. “I'm as shocked as you are”, Herrick added.

The old director walked into the conference room, and right behind him was a fine young man, walking with him.

That must be the new director.

But something seemed kind of off.

Ben was sure he had seen that face somewhere. He couldn't quite recall where exactly, but he was sure he had seen it. Somewhere.

“Is that the new director?” Herrick asked in low tone.

“I think so. And I don't know why, but I think I've seen him somewhere”, his hands were grazing his chin as he spoke.

“Yeah right, in your dreams”, Herrick said and laughed.

The old director walked up to the stage and stood behind the lectern.

“Good morning doctors. I'm very sure that some of you, if not most of you, have already heard the news that I would be stepping down as the director of this hospital, and to confirm the news, yes, I am stepping down, and someone new is taking over”, murmurs erupted, and the old man allowed it to die down before continuing.

“It shouldn't come as a surprise, my friends. I am already old, and as all old people do, I am retiring, so yes, it should not be a surprise. At least I'll get to realize my dream of traveling the world now”, he said and earned chuckles from the crowd.

“ Anyways, I know that most of us do have appointments with patients and surgeries to do, so, without wasting much of our time, allow me to introduce to you, the new director of Billywood's hospital, Dr. Brandon Harris”, he said, and the fine young man walked up to the stage amidst the applaud from the crowd.

One person stood up, two people stood up, they became three, four, five, and before anyone could realize what was happening, everyone was on their feet, clapping as the so called Brandon Harris walked up to the lectern and stood beside it, after shaking hands with the old director.

Ben was also clapping, and was also standing like the others, but he was still trying to point out where he knew that face and that name from.

“Brandon Harris”, he said the name to himself, and his eyes widened in shock as he remembered.