The ultrasound machine shuddered slightly as its wheels rolled along the shiny linoleum floor. If only it could talk. It would tell you that it hates the strip of bricks near the emergency room, rattling its screws and computer boards loose with the vibrations. It would tell you that it prefers to be pulled along rather than pushed through the corridors and around corners. If you listen closely you can hear it grumbling as its top and bottom sections creak and groan as if its driver were trying to bisect it. It laments the hours spent in an exam room alone, isolated from its peers. It rejoices encountering medical equipment and patient care devices in the rooms and halls of the hospital. There is almost a perceptible sense of pride and camaraderie; perhaps an increase in height or agility as it navigates the obstacle course with its driver, racing to the scene of one crisis after another.
The machine would wax philosophical about its roll in patient care, its ability to make or break a person’s day. Such power this one piece of equipment has, such responsibility. It never desired this power. As is the nature of every blessing in life; joy often brings an element of pain, and vice-versa. So relieved is this machine to not find thrombosis; so dismayed is this patient to have no explanation for their pain. This machine loathes the strange sensation which surrounds and permeates it when a patient cries; could this be feeling? Whatever the label, the sense is as inescapable and oppressive as a hot, humid summer day in the deep South.
It is a life of endless service, a thankless existence. Some days this responsibility weights heavy, and like a living, breathing thing it longs for respite. The machine retreats into itself and cannot be coaxed into the daylight again by its operator. The all-powerful dictator has become a paper tiger, ranting at and threatening the machine to no avail. Specialists are called, surgery is performed, and following prompt recovery the machine will once again take its place amongst the investigators and healers. The only suggestion that its existence may be finite is the sudden absence of a colleague, followed by the flutter of rumors. Before long, the vascular lab is abuzz with the promise of great things to come. The machine’s new associate arrives in the cover of darkness. Morning brings fanfare and praise, the operators fawning and gushing over the newest addition to the fleet of machines. They praise it, they worship it, and they kiss its wheels.
As gradually as the rising of the sun to full daylight, the machine comprehends the inevitable. One day it will reach the full velocity of its steady decline into obsolescence, until at last it comes to a full rest in the back room, veiled in dust. The journey’s end will come soon enough, but for now there is still one more trip across the bricks to a swollen leg, one more ride up the elevator to a weakened arm, one more call to action.
