last night's sleep rating: B
mood: accomplished

A good day today. I'm still feeling pleased about last night -- thanks to Messrs. Ward, Randle El and Roethlisberger, I've had a good return on certain short-term financial investments. The only way that could have ended better would have been taking some money from Foreman, but he didn't bite this year.

Satisfactory rounds this morning. Reporter guy is doing well and should be ready to go home soon. What home he's going to I don't know and don't care. That's what discharge planners are for.

Had a good lunch and now I'm just going through the mail. As she passed out the mail, Cam saw the big white envelope addressed to me and was clearly dying of curiosity, so of course I brought my stack into the office and closed the door. I toss the little things on the top of the file -- CME seminars, flyers for Grand Rounds -- until finally I'm at the bottom of the stack. I take the big white envelope and slit the flap open.

It's three complimentary copies of Innards. My article's in print and will be coming soon to a medical library near you. This is the first time I've published in this particular journal, but the cover letter is the same old boilerplate. It thanks me profusely for my interesting submission, notes that the article will also be available online to paying subscribers, invites me to consider submitting again very soon, blah de blah blah. I take one copy and put it in my bag: I'll give it to Cuddy when I go to the clinic this afternoon. I file the second copy: I'll need it if I ever need to update my CV. The third copy will go out to the conference room.

I look at the title page of the journal. To my surprise, my article's not in the back, where they usually put the "News of the Weird" type write-ups. I flip back and start skimming the article again:

Upon inquiry, we discovered that the patient's cat had died at around the same time of the onset of the patient's symptoms. We performed a necropsy....

We performed a necropsy hardly begins to describe what "we" did. The wary hope in Chase's eyes as he delivered the animal down to the morgue; the stench of the dead cat as it thawed; the rattle of... the rattle of the instruments. Knowing that the kid was dying upstairs, knowing that they were prepping him for the O.R., knowing that, despite all that, I had to work slowly, that I couldn't let the urgency of the case make me careless.

But that was almost a year ago. I look up and, like magic, Foreman appears at the door.

"Tyrant," I snarl. I stand up and hand him the journal. "Here you go: one more reason why you're only pretending to be the boss." I take my bag, chuckle inwardly at his expression, and head off to the clinic.