[FICTION] THE EDUCATION OF ELIAS RIGG, CONTINUED
In Which Elias Quietly Begins to Chart Everything That Cannot Be Measured
These are the serialized accounts for the novella, Working Terms. All tasks are mandatory. All emotions are optional. Welcome to your role in the system.
FROM THE LAST → Elias Rigg is cornered by the unnervingly watchful Ms. Morleen Trapp after a “chart discrepancy” involving room 214B, prompting a request for a “Narrative Reconciliation.” Their interaction is a tense, bureaucratic ballet of euphemism and twitching, where smiles are mistakes and laminated forms hold more weight than facts. Elias drafts a carefully worded non-confession, satisfied with his subtle deflection, as Ms. Trapp senses that trouble has only just begun.
Hey! Here’s a button for the index to this serialized novella!
It began with a printed email, as so many things do at Markworth Hospital.
Elias found it on the desk at the end of the hall, the desk used only by people who don’t have desks. It had been left there with the casual brutality of a trap. The email was paperclipped to a highlighter-colored form that read:
LEARNING CORRECTION NOTICE
Employee: Rigg, Elias P.
Subject: Post-Incident Clinical Literacy Realignment
Beneath it, a sentence appeared in Comic Sans, as if to imply that consequences could also be fun:
“Let’s learn from our mistakes together!”
Elias blinked. He’d seen versions of this before—mandatory modules on ergonomic posture, inclusive sharps disposal, and what to do if you hear a rattling noise in the MRI suite—but this one had a unique gravity.
The title alone was heavy with implied crime:
Sincere Documentation: A Post-Mortem Approach.
Twelve words. Three colons. One accusation.
He flipped the page. Morleen Trapp scheduled the training. Of course. Who else but Morleen, she of the clipboard and calibrated twitch, the woman whose eye had become a barometer for lies?
There, at the bottom:
Location: Microlearning Center B (Lower Subfloor Level 1.5)
Time: 0615 sharp
Attire: Neutral expression. Smart casual encouraged.
He read it three times, each time finding it somehow more offensive.
The Microlearning Center B was a converted supply closet with motivational decals (“Every Chart is a Story!”) and a defunct rolling projector. A folding table bore a small stack of individually-wrapped peppermints and an unattended laptop from 2009. The room smelled faintly of whiteboard marker.
The workshop facilitator was already there: a man named Caleb whose badge read “Instructional Liaison III,” and his entire emotional register could be described as Apologizing for Existing.
“Welcome!” Caleb announced. “You must be … Rigg?”
Elias, who had been Rigg for some time now, confirmed this.
“Great. This will just be us today. It’s a pilot.”
“A pilot,” Elias repeated.
“Yes! A brand-new initiative for folks who may have encountered narrative complexity in recent charting situations.”
“Narrative complexity,” Elias murmured. “Do go on.”
Caleb smiled—tight-lipped, terrified. Somewhere deep in his chest, the echo of a business degree cried out in pain.
“Today we’ll explore the Four Pillars of Sincere Documentation: Clarity, Honesty, Responsibility, and Reflective Tone.” He clicked the laptop. A PowerPoint opened to a slide featuring a cartoon stethoscope smiling next to the phrase: If it didn’t happen, don’t chart it. If it did happen, chart like you mean it.
“Now,” Caleb continued, “imagine a scenario where a patient is, say, deceased, and—”
“They’re dead,” Elias said flatly.
“Well. Right. Yes. But before that’s been determined, we need to be clear about what was observed. Not assumed.”
“I observed that he wasn’t moving. Then I observed that I didn’t want to be the one who noticed.”
Caleb hesitated. “That’s … thank you for sharing.”
“I think the real problem,” Elias said, “is that observation itself has become interpretive. Like art. Or weather patterns.”
Caleb’s eye twitched. Not like Morleen’s, hers was weaponized. Caleb’s twitch was more like a wet dog trying to understand jazz.
“I appreciate that,” he said, and reached into a folder. “Would you like to color in the Documentation Reflection Wheel?”
Elias stood up. Slowly. With purpose. As if summoning some ancestral nurse aide who once walked off the job in 1973 and was never seen again.
“I believe I have reflected enough,” he said.
“But we haven’t even gotten to the roleplay.”
“Then let us leave it mercifully unperformed.”
He walked out, peppermints in pocket, dignity in ruins.
As the elevator hummed, Elias stared into the mirrored panel and saw not himself but some new archetype: the man who glimpsed the inner guts of corporate mercy and lived.
Back on the floor, a nurse handed him a vitals sheet and said, “Can you get Room 309? He hasn’t moved all morning.”
Elias nodded and took the clipboard. This time, he’d ask twice.
UP NEXT → THE REVIEW WINDOW: In Which Morleen Trapp Reviews the Notes and Finds No Errors, Only a Voice
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