An Accident By Any Other Name

The dangest thing happened down at Harper General Clinic yesterday. My good friend Cleavemore Reynolds, retired airline pilot and Sunday School teacher, was admitted for an operation on his frozen shoulder. It had gotten so bad he could not move his arm up or down, or sideways. They don't do a lot of this kind of surgery at this hospital, but Cleavemore's granddaddy gave a big money contribution that enabled them to build a surgery suite and Cleavemore was bound and determined that his procedure be done there. A qualified surgeon came down from Jackson and all was set for 7 a.m.

Waymon Klutzfield, a young Harper boy, has always been known for little mishaps. Unfortunately many people have been affected and not in a good way. Yesterday all that changed. Waymon had been given the job of orderly at the hospital on a trial basis. He had been let go down at the feed and seed when he got an order mixed up and Ben Hadley planted a field intended for some edible crop with wild flowers. It came up real pretty but didn't put food on the table.

Anyway, Waymon was lifting Cleavemore on to the stretcher that was to take him down to the surgery suite and Waymon slipped and dropped his patient hard on the rolling cart. It scared Cleavemore real bad and he started waving both his arms in the air and shouting out bad stuff at poor Waymon. That's when he realized the frozen shoulder had thawed (if that's what you call it.) Everything came out okay (no operation was needed) for everyone except Waymon. The hospital administrator said the accident while it might have had a happy outcome was an accident just the same and his hospital did not allow for accidents. Waymon is once again looking for employment.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle