Heaven and ERth

“Have we met before?” I asked the new patient whom the cops had brought into Room 15. “Have you been a patient here before?”  He could have been a patient from last night and I wouldn’t necessarily have recognized him. Our ER saw over 200 patients a day, so it was pretty easy to lose track.
   
The man did not reply, but sat motionless on the stretcher with a pleasant, yet strange, expression on his face.
   
“Go ahead,” the older cop commanded. “Tell her your name. You’re in luck tonight, nurse!” He and his skinny young partner snickered.
   
I didn’t much care for these two particular cops, and I cared even less for being the butt of some kind of idiotic cop joke. “Okay, so what IS your name, and do you give us permission to treat you here in the emergency department tonight?” I asked the man. “You are not required to agree to be seen here, even though you may have been misled to believe you did not have the right to refuse.” This was completely true, but the cops hated it when we pointed this out. Nine times out of ten, their charges would immediately refuse anything and everything, which resulted in a big clusterfuck of paperwork for them.

Both officers mean-mugged me, then walked out of the exam room towards the reception area where they were accustomed to being fawned over by the secretarial staff. No loss, as far as I was concerned. The tall, scrawny man seated before me wasn’t violent according to the note on my triage form.
   
“It’s perfectly fine. You have my permission AND my complete cooperation, ma’am,” the man spoke. “As for my name, I am known by many names in many countries and in many times. Some know me as Yahweh, some Jehovah. I have been called the Light, and the Lamb, the Holy One, and the Good Shepherd. Some know me as the great ”I Am“. But you can just call me God.”
   
“Okay, God,” I replied, “Have you ever been seen here before in a...mortal type of situation...where you’d have a social security number or an address? On Earth?”
   
“The Son of Man hath no place to rest his head,” he sighed.
   
“So, I take that to mean that, no, you don’t have an address.”
   
“That is so, daughter,” God confirmed with a nod of his head.
   
“And you’ve never been here before?” I repeated the question. “I know how you sometimes use a human body as a vessel for the Holy Spirit and all, so that’s why I ask again.”
   
God appeared to consider my comment carefully, so I let him mull it over while I began taking his vital signs.
   
“Yea, thou hast spoken the truth, my child,” he replied when I removed the thermometer from his mouth. “I believe I was here as mortal flesh under the name Peter Sonze.”
   
“Great,” I responded. “Now, would it be permissable for us to use Peter’s address? I know it probably seems ridiculous that we need that...with the way you’re able to know every hair on our heads and all. We just don’t have your...infinite wisdom and so forth.”
   
God nodded, “Verily, you speak the truth. Please use the address for my human vessel.”
   
“Awesome. Now, do you have any allergies to anything?  Any medications you take on a daily basis? Any medical problems? ”
   
“Not anymore!” God replied brightly.
   
“Not anymore--what?” Now we were getting down to the meat and potatoes.
   
“Well, Peter was supposed to be taking Trazadone and Seraquel and a few others, but he doesn’t need them anymore,” God replied.
   
“Did Peter’s doctor tell him to stop taking them or did he just decide that he felt better and quit?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
   
“Oh, his doctor would never have let him stop. He was only interested in keeping Peter all doped up--keeping him from being able to see the Truth, you know?”
   
I nodded sympathetically. “Who was Peter’s doctor? The guy who wouldn’t let him see theTruth?”
   
“Dr. Smythe used to be his doctor. But not now. Nope, not anymore! Peter was healed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Jesus.”
   
“Amen. Well, that’s all the questions I have for you, God. Your blood pressure...everything’s fine. The doctor will be in to see you as soon as possible. If there’s anything I can do for you, just push this button right here,” I said as I placed the call bell in the man’s hand.
   
“Go in peace, my child,” God replied, as he made the sign of the cross in my direction.
   
“Amen,” I replied.
   
I headed toward the nurses’ station with God’s clipboard in hand.  I finished my triage notes and slid it into the rack behind the charts of the other patients waiting to be seen.
       
Dr. Bryant looked up from the chart he was working on. “Who’s that?”
   
“God,” I replied.
       
“What a coincidence!” he replied. “I’ve just come out of Room 4 where there’s a fifteen year old girl with her mom, and I know you’ll never believe this, but the girl is pregnant by immaculate conception! I think that makes the second virgin birth this month!"
   
“You know what a real miracle would be?”  I asked.
   
Dr. Bryant nodded. “Yeah," he replied, "a REAL miracle would be all of them going home.”
   
“Amen.”
   
"Or, we sure could use some rain..."
   
   
       
Word Count:  910