Professional Whimsy

Three months after Leigh left for college,
IT demands a password change.
Morrison sits in the empty house,
cursor blinking like a pulse.

The cat, technically his daughter’s
but left behind for the dorms,
jumps onto his laptop,
walks across the keyboard: flghklttyn.

“Fluffy kitten,” he says aloud,
surprising them both.
She purrs, indifferent to his revelation.

First week of residency:
“That’s Morrison,” someone whispers
in the cafeteria. “Hands like God,
personality of a brick.”

The new resident watches him eat alone,
methodical: salad, sandwich, apple,
checking his phone between bites
for surgery updates.
When he stands, she glimpses
yellow plastic peeking from his coat pocket,
thinks she must be seeing things.

Later, hovering with a chart,
she watches Dr. Morrison log in.
F-l-u-f-f-y-K-i-t-t-e-n-!-2-3
appears in asterisks.

“Strong password,” she observes,
trying not to smile.
“Meets all security requirements,” he replies
with surgical precision,
pulling up tomorrow’s schedule:
two bypasses, one valve repair.
His fingers, steady enough to suture
arteries thinner than thread,
hit Enter with unnecessary force.

In OR-3, Morrison arranges instruments
with the same ritual he’s kept for fifteen years:
scalpel, clamps, and tucked behind
the suture tray, one yellow rubber duck
the size of a thumb.

“Doctor Morrison?” The tech hesitates, pointing.
“That’s Gerald,” he says, adjusting his loupes.
“He’s observed over nine hundred procedures.”

Six hours later, the bypass complete,
the patient’s heart finding its new rhythm,
he peels off his gloves, walks to the family.
“Everything went perfectly,” he tells the wife,
who cries into her hands.
In his pocket, Gerald shifts slightly,
a small weight against his hip,
ridiculous and necessary.

That night, home to the empty house,
Morrison places the duck on the kitchen counter,
microwaves dinner for one,
tells the cat about the steady beat
of a repaired heart,
how it sounds like hope, like tomorrow,
like something worth saving.

The cat, unimpressed,
waits for him to mention the tuna.

Twenty years ago, the NICU:
Leigh, three days old,
his wife laughing through exhaustion,
“Every baby needs a duck.”
Yellow plastic, smaller than his palm,
bought from the hospital gift shop,
the kind that squeaks.

Two weeks later, the aneurysm
no one saw coming.
He held Leigh while they rushed
his wife to surgery,
the duck clutched in his fist.
Not enough hands, not fast enough,
not the right specialist on call.

After, he switched specialties—
pediatrics to cardiac:
“I’ll be the hands that are there.”

The duck never squeaked again,
as if it too had lost its voice.
But he carried it, carries it still,
this remnant of her laughter,
her certainty that small things matter.

His brother-in-law still texts weekly,
terrible jokes:
What’s the best thing about Switzerland?
The flag’s a big plus.
Morrison saves them all,
reads them to the cat,
who pretends not to listen.

At work, they call him “brick.”
At home, he’s FluffyKitten!23,
guardian of Gerald,
reader of bad jokes
to an indifferent cat.

Between who we must be
and who we are
lives the space for grace—
yellow plastic, weak passwords,
the small rebellions
that keep us human,
that keep us here.