A Night of Compassion in the ER

Around winter of '93-95, I was sick. Really sick. Like,

pretty sure I had pneumonia or something so I went to the hospital. Busy that day (Friday),

so it was a fairly packed waiting area in the ER. I sat down and tried not to cough on

anyone. Or be coughed on. I was there about 20 minutes when a mother and her

young daughter came in holding a ziploc that had a washcloth inside wrapped around a small object sitting

on ice. The cloth was mostly white except for some bright red coloring on one

end: blood. The girl (about 7-9) looked scared as hell. Holding the bag

in her good hand, while the other looked like it was bandaged FAST and was pink from blood,