“Curtains”
Graham Elder 19 June, 2022 – 5 min read Foreword This story was submitted as part of the inaugural New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) fiction writing contest last year. The Contest rules were very specific. No more than 1500 words, and contestants must either: Write about the doctor behind the curtain or invent the back story of the patient you didn’t meet until it was too late. I decided to try and accomplish both. Alas, I didn’t win, but it was a fun effort. “Curtains” All doctors have at least one case they wish they could take back – a do-over. A case that sits deep in the pit of their stomachs…
Unstoppable You
by Laura Cody May 27, 2021 – 4 min read Featured in The Best of CafeLit, vol 11; 2022 You linger an extra five minutes over your second cup of coffee, luxuriating in the quiet house after what virtually amounted to fourteen months of prison time in G-pop. With friends, you pay dutiful lip-service to the hidden blessings of the pandemic, the silver linings behind the sorrows. You say it taught you to slow down, to enjoy simple pleasures – a home-cooked meal, a jigsaw puzzle, a socially-distanced stroll in fading sunlight. You don’t mention how your house shrunk to the dimensions of a tuna can, how your husband set up…
A Hospital Goes to War
Graham Elder April 2, 2020 – 5 min read The enemy is nanoscopic in size, but infinite in numbers. It attacks like a swarm of tiny Terminators showing no emotion, no mercy. It exists only to infect, to reproduce, and often, to kill. It seems to have come out of nowhere, and yet we have been attacked by its kind before. This is an enemy that has awakened our collective consciousness and forced humanity into a corner. We are at war. A world war. This war isn’t about vanquishing or eradicating; it is about surviving. In an age of unprecedented technology, it is also the most recorded of all wars.…
