The day began with toast.
Not metaphorical toast—literal, flaming, blackened, smoke-spewing toast.
Someone—no one ever admitted who—had dug an old toaster out of the staff room closet, a relic from a time when appliances were built like tanks and smelled like dust. It was plugged in, loaded with two slices of what used to be bread, and promptly jammed just as the morning shift was trying to reset from the chaos of overnight admissions. By the time the third button mash failed to eject the toast, the toaster began to hiss, then spark, then belch out a plume of thick, oily smoke. The kind that instantly transforms any workplace into a scene from a fire drill video.
And then came the shriek. Not from the toaster. From the fire alarm.
Chaos bloomed.
Staff flooded the hallways like confused ants, half-dressed patients shuffled around in gowns that swayed like sails, and somewhere, someone was yelling about their oatmeal. Jude, half-asleep and cradling his coffee like a newborn, looked up at the blaring ceiling and sighed like a monk sensing a test of his patience.
"Alright," he muttered, "who sacrificed breakfast to the gods of chaos?"
I was mid-chart, halfway through entering notes on a patient with a urinary catheter mishap, when the alarm blared. I stood up so fast my chair skidded backward into the wall. "You've gotta be kidding me…"
"Evacuation!" came a nurse's voice over the intercom. "Evacuate the floor!"
Trevor burst through the break room door with the flaming toaster in hand like it was the Olympic torch. "IT'S CONTROLLED! I GOT IT—NO WAIT, IT'S SPITTING!"
"Trevor, drop it!" I barked, backing up like the toaster had a gun.
Trevor ran past us, trailing a curtain of smoke as the entire wing filled with confusion.
Kip appeared at the nurse's station with a damp towel over his nose like he was reenacting a trench warfare scene. "Everyone, remain calm. I've handled worse situations in Bali."
"Handled what, a burnt mojito?" Jude coughed.
Kip didn't hear him—or pretended not to.
By the time the fire was out (Everett calmly smothered it with an old linen and gave the toaster a quiet burial in the dumpster), the building had been evacuated, re-cleared by maintenance, and the fire alarm silenced. Patients were wheeled back inside. Nurses returned to their stations. Life resumed, but not without a thick haze of smoke and embarrassment.
Later that afternoon, as fans blew air through the hallways and everyone swapped theories on who caused the Great Toast Incident, I found myself standing with Everett in a side hallway near the janitor's closet.
"Think anyone will confess?" I asked, arms crossed.
Everett looked out the window. "Eventually. Truth rises like smoke—always finds a way to choke you."
I smirked. "That's poetic."
"It's toast-ic," Everett replied, deadpan.
I groaned. "You're getting worse."
"Or better," Everett offered. "Depending on your taste in comedy."
Trevor, having washed his hands for the fifth time that day and still smelling faintly like burnt bread, walked up and leaned against the wall. "I almost had it under control. If the smoke detectors had just been a little more… chill."
"You were sprinting down the hallway with an active fire in your hands," I reminded him.
Trevor tilted his head. "And that's… not allowed?"
Everett chuckled. "Next time, just unplug it and walk away."
Trevor nodded solemnly. "Lesson learned. But I also learned something else today."
"What's that?" I asked.
Trevor's voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. "Some bagels are evil."
---
Later in the day, as things settled back into a semi-normal rhythm, I checked on a patient I'd helped admit earlier that week—Mr. Carmichael, a wiry old man with a sharp mind and a pacemaker that beeped like it had stage fright. He was a retired philosophy professor who liked to challenge the nurses with riddles and wax poetic about hospital food.
"You again," Mr. Carmichael grinned. "Come to enlighten me, young Socrates?"
I smiled. "Only if you promise not to quiz me."
"I only test the willing," the man replied, eyes twinkling.
As I checked his IV line, Mr. Carmichael pointed toward the hallway.
"You know, your janitor friend—the one with the eyes like he's seen God and outlived Him—he came by earlier. Said something strange."
"That sounds like Everett," I replied.
"He said, 'Hospitals are like monasteries—but louder. And people here don't realize how many saints wear scrubs and sweep floors.'"
I paused, the words sinking in like a pebble in water.
"He ever talk like that to you?" the old man asked.
"More than you'd think," I murmured.
"Then listen," Carmichael said, tapping the side of his head. "Don't just mop the floors. Mop the minds. Leave things cleaner than you found them."
---
Down the hallway, Jude was giving Kip a tour of the supply room, which Kip had apparently never visited in his six weeks on staff. "These," Jude said, pointing to bins, "are gloves. The purple ones go on your hands. Crazy, right?"
Kip nodded like he was studying for a quiz. "And these… buckets?"
"Buckets," Jude confirmed. "Used for mopping."
"I assumed," Kip said. "But one must never presume."
Jude stared at him. "You said that like it's wise, but I think you just confused yourself."
Kip straightened. "I was on a video call with a physician in Dubai this morning. We discussed quantum dermatology."
"That's not a thing."
"It will be," Kip said, smug.
Jude sighed. "I can't tell if you're stupid or too smart to function."
"You'd be surprised," Kip said. "A lot of people can't keep up with my ideas."
Trevor passed by the open door with a broom slung over his shoulder. "That's because your ideas are shaped like pretzels."
"I love pretzels," Kip said, missing the insult entirely.
"Of course you do," Jude muttered.
---
By evening, the halls had cleared. I sat in the break room sipping the last cup of coffee from a scorched pot, writing notes on my clipboard when Everett came in, quietly placing a small paper bag on the table.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Salvaged toast," Everett said with a half-smile.
I opened it. Inside were two perfectly crisp slices, buttered and cinnamon-sugared.
Everett poured himself a cup and leaned against the counter. "Sometimes things burn so we remember to savor the things that don't."
I took a bite. "You're not gonna tell me it was you, are you?"
"No," Everett said, sipping. "But I will tell you this: not all fires are bad."
The silence that followed was warm.
Even if the toaster wasn't.