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Show Nocturne Weeks later, as she stood over Mark Grover's dead body and saw her bent reflection in the bars of his bed, Carolyn Willis remembered when management banned reading- when she stopped bringing award-winning titles to work and leafing through newly printed pages-the time when the nurses on the cancer unit began to wager on the possibility of death. Management claimed the nurses scanned to the end of paragraphs even when alarms rang. Reading compromised their response time. The nurses liked to mark their place before shutting their books. Before the ban, the nurses read multi-generational epics, they read rehab center memoirs, they read classics they should have read in high school. Anika Sorenson wrote exclamation marks in the margins. Sydney Fisher underlined everything mentioning destiny, wanting clues about hers. Jasmine Henry underlined her books with faint pencil marks. They did not know how else to survive the shift. First the management banned reading, so then knitting began. Myra Paul, a mother of three, brought spools of raw wool. The beginners like Todd Harrison, who stole knitting needles from his mother-in-law, made scarves, while the more experienced knitters worked on mittens. But then management prohibited knitting too. The next alternative became Sudoku and crosswords puzzles. The nurses filled in the boxes with mechanical pencil. First reading, next knitting, then puzzles, and finally talking: unless absolutely necessary. The management's issues with late-night conversation reminded the nurses of their angry parents at childhood slumber parties. They imposed the talking ban when a family complained they could hear giggling all through the night. The nurses |