Emergency Room

Written for Violet’s Literary Quote Challenge
where she asks us to include the following line
into our writing: “Anger is what we feel when
we’re helpless” from ‘Cilka’s Journey’ by
Heather Morris. This is my response.

The coffee tasted of nothing. Jay drank it anyway.

Forty-three minutes. He knew because he’d checked his phone forty-three times, once per minute, a ritual that had long since stopped meaning anything.

When a nurse walked past without looking at him …. like Chelsea was a case and not a child who still insisted on sleeping with a stuffed frog named Mr. Greenjeans …. Jay was on his feet before he knew it.

“Hey. Hey!“

The nurse turned. Jay opened his mouth and found nothing there. What was the question? Is she alive? Will she be okay? Can you promise me? The nurse’s expression shifted to something practiced and careful.

“Someone will update you very soon, sir.”

“I don’t want soon. I want….” He stopped. His hands, he noticed, were shaking. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

He sat back down. He didn’t even remember standing up.

The motivational poster on the wall said You’ve got this! He stared at it until the words lost their shape. He thought about ripping it off the wall. He thought about the driver of the other car, currently, presumably, alive and unharmed and going about his evening living his life. He thought about the enormous injustice of a seven-year-old girl in an operating room who had done nothing …. nothing …. to deserve any of this, and the rage came up so fast and so hot it frightened him.

He made a fist and punched the poster, which did nothing but put a crease in it, scrape his knuckles and solicit stern, cautionary looks from the nurse’s station,

That was what frightened him most. Not his anger at the driver, the nurse, the poster. The anger at himself. For not protecting his little girl from harm, as he had promised. He was supposed to be there for her, unconditionally …. and he let her down. For being, at the critical moment, of no help.

His wife, Sandra, had returned from calling her mother. She looked at his face and seemed to understand everything. She sat beside him and placed her hand over his.

“Anger is what we feel when we’re helpless,” she said quietly. “My therapist told me that once. I never knew what it meant until right now.”

Jay said nothing. But he turned his hand over and held hers tightly, and the hot rage slowly, began to leave him.

NAR©2026

This is “Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who

The Arithmetic of Anger

^{Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, except where otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}