I am on the elevator with a dead man.

At least, I think it’s a man. It could be a woman. I know it’s dead. I pushed the button for the elevator and waited, and while I was waiting, two orderlies pushed the stretcher-with-a-sheet-over-it into the hallway and waited next to me.

We all know what’s on those stretchers. The sheets are pulled tightly over the rails so that visitors and other clueless people don’t see the outline of the body bag underneath – but we work here, we know..

The orderlies are mostly the kind of people who favor street slang and gold – both jewelry and teeth. In a hospital full of uppity, over-educated healthcare professionals, the orderlies are the comic relief. I like them. I like that even now, as they are pushing the stretcher-with-a-sheet-over-it onto the elevator with me, they are talking about how someone spent sixteen hours getting her new weave put in and someone else’s brother got all up in the business of the hater who dissed the new rims on his ride. These people are not bothered with the fact that the dead are among us. They aren’t wondering, as I am and wish I weren’t, what will eventually land me in a body bag, sporting a tag on my toe. At this moment, I wish that I had someone to distract me in the elevator, but I don’t see an opening in which to insert myself into the orderlies’ conversation. I remain silent.

Eight stories down, I squeeze past the stretcher-with-a-sheet-over-it and step off the elevator. I am headed to the cafeteria, teeming with life and energy, for my daily dose of grease and Pepsi. The morgue is one floor below.