They gave us little yellow tickets and instructed us not to lose them.

Yellow like the flowers sprouting from the ground,
Wrestling blades of grass,
Growing up towards the sun, yellow and shiny,
Yellow teeth, dentist bills,

That week was full of “almost!” moments. I almost called out but came in begrudgingly. I almost left the event early to return to my office and work in solitude or just left early for the day, stealing a roll of toilet paper on my way out. I thought about all of those “almost!” moments, staring “almost!” comatose at the asphalt outside the hospital.

The flower print on Pich’s shirt,
Daisies on the ground, store-bought Chrysanthemum homecomings,
The plastic flower on my coworker’s car, waving enthusiastically,
Flower pins on Pich’s daughter’s Walmart Crocs,

That is what I do, notice things. As I drove to the hospital, I contemplated the cause. Was it the sun, or something more nefarious and complex? I was not sure; it was a company picnic. It happened just before 5:00 pm. A seizure. It lasted for three minutes but felt like twenty. While she seized, I looked at the HR partner, wondering what sort of flowers she would send on the company’s behalf for Pich’s funeral. I held her paper-thin hand. Her husband ran from across the street where he worked. He just knew. Maybe he is a superhero.

Crimson like the nail polish on her narrow fingers,
Like a beating heart pumping blood,
Like the wrath of my father, the despair of my mother,
Red like a signal to stop or go,

“It’s okay,” I tried to soothe her as she lay on her back in the grass, the last tremors leaving her body. Eyes fixed on the big blue sky. When the ambulance arrived, I spelled out her name for the EMT with the tiny chest notepad. I drove to the hospital. We waited – her daughter, her husband, and I.

Everything was gray, the walls of the hospital
The cement parking structure, striking against thundering sky,
The gray gauze in her mouth, the gray pen they gave us to sign our names,
The skin of the patients, all gray,

Back at the office, the HR representative amplified her voice across the lawn, calling out the lottery winners. She pulled a ticket for first place, and frowned reading Pich’s name. She fell silent for a moment before pulling another yellow ticket out of the glass bowl – another “almost!”.

– Samantha Allen