a moment in the day: animal hospital

Two in the morning at the emergency animal hospital is quiet. Not many people in the waiting area. There's the man with the Yorkie called Max and the woman with the cat named Halloween. And Stephen and me sitting side by side, Nicholas on my lap. The big TV screen on the wall is showing Bob Ross painting a mountain with the sound mostly off.

When we first got here during the eleven o'clock hour, it was noisier, Nicholas on my lap emitting a slow rhythm: a cry, then quiet, a cry, then quiet. He was agitated and his face was swollen and we were worried he was having an allergic reaction to something. But in the time we've been waiting here, he seems to have passed whatever reaction he was having to whatever it was. The swelling has gone down and he's not crying or agitated anymore. He curls on my lap mostly snoozing. We're at that point in the long emergency room night where you ask yourself whether you should have stayed home but you've been here long enough that it feels wrong to leave.

Max and his owner have been here since seven o'clock.

Bob Ross has been painting landscapes on the TV screen for three hours. There's a Bob Ross network, apparently? This late into the night, that fact feels kind of surreal. What is the purpose of the Bob Ross network? Is it expressly made for calming people in waiting rooms? Can individuals subscribe to the Bob Ross Network?

Time moves weirdly during the emergency room night. It feels like it moves both too fast and too slow. I look at the clock. I watch Bob Ross paint another mountain. I pet Nicholas. I look at the clock. I watch Bob Ross paint tree branches. I pet Nicholas. I stare into space. I look at the clock. I watch Bob Ross paint wave breaks in a seascape.

Now a sudden hot seep spreads across my lap under Nicholas. He's peeing. It's not a little tinkle but a wide Bob Ross seascape, and I'm too tired to really care. 

"Yeah," I say to Stephen, deadpan. "He's peeing."

As Stephen gets up to go after paper towels and call the front desk person for a clean up, I turn my eyes back to Bob Ross. It's going to be a long night.