The room was awash with harsh fluorescent light. It rained down from the wide saucer-like lamp that hung from the ceiling on thick metal poles. A sterile whiteness permeated the area, broken up only by the seafoam green of Twilight’s surgical scrubs and the metallic coldness of the tool tray.
Her hooves freshly washed, Twilight stood on her hind legs and held the clean limbs out for her assistant, Spike, to cover with latex gloves. Now assured of their sterility, Twilight nodded at her hooves happily, then looked over to Spike who was wrapped up in a pair of scrubs far too large for his body. His face was covered by a mask held on by elastic bands, but Twilight could tell from his eyes that he still held some apprehension.
“Spike, you know if we don’t operate immediately, we’ll lose her.”
He nodded solemnly. “I just don’t know if I’m ready is all. I mean, I’ve never done surgery before.”
Twilight frowned. “This isn’t the time for second-guessing, Spike. I need you. I’ll be doing all the hard stuff anyway, I just need you to do what I tell you.” She looked him in the eye. “Can you do that?” He hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Good.”
Pulling her own mask down over her muzzle, Twilight turned back to the patient. Swathed in the same color cloth the scrubs were made of, she was barely visible beneath the ocean of green. Her face was obscured by the light, and the rest covered in cloth, but her chest was clearly visible. An opening in the cloth allowed Twilight to see where the surgery was going to be taking place. She would never tell Spike, but Twilight was just as nervous as he was. She was just better at hiding it.
Swallowing her fears, Twilight approached the patient while at the same time held out her right hoof. “Scalpel,” she said in a harsh tone.
Spike quickly snatched the scalpel from the tool tray and extended it to Twilight. With dexterity a monkey would’ve been jealous of, Twilight took the scalpel and sucked in her breath. She looked down at the patient’s bare chest, exhaled, then brought the tip of the blade to her sternum and pressed down.
“I’m making the first incision,” she announced. Then, with a careful motion, she dragged the blade down her chest and stopped right below the xiphoid process. Now came the tricky part. Tracing lines to the left and right of the incision’s beginning and end, Twilight prepared the patient for the next step. She handed the scalpel back to Spike, who replaced it on the tool tray, and said, “Surgical hooks.”
Spike produced a pair of hooks and handed them to Twilight. She accepted them and pointed to the remaining two and back to Spike.
“I—I don’t know—”
“Spike!” Twilight shot at him. “She’s going to die if you don’t help me!” Sucking in his chest, Spike nodded reluctantly and retrieved the two remaining hooks. He looked to Twilight. She demonstrated how to place the hooks beneath the patient’s skin and secure them to the operating table by doing her side first. “It’s easy,” she assured him. “Nothing to it.”
Still unsure of himself, but determined to help, Spike clumsily used the hooks to hold the brown chest skin back on his side then said, “Okay, what next?”
Twilight bit her lip beneath her mask, and said, “I need the bone cutter.”
“What about all the other... stuff?” Spike asked, pointing his finger vaguely at all the stuff still occupying the patient’s chest cavity. “Shouldn’t we take that out first?”
“I’m the doctor here,” Twilight countered. “I only need you to do what I tell you, not question my decisions. Bone cutter.”
Sighing, Spike turned back to the rest of the tools and pulled the menacing-looking pincers from the tray. He held them out for Twilight to take, and averted his eyes when she did. “I don’t think I can watch,” he said. “Tell me when it’s over.”
Twilight ignored him and began digging through the patient’s stuff with the bone cutter until she reached something hard and firm. She wrapped the bone cutter’s cruel blades around the object and squeezed. A second later, there was a loud crack that sounded like a tree branch snapping as the first rib broke free. Thirteen more cracks later and Twilight had finished clearing the patient’s chest cavity.
She was now sweating from the effort and she nudged Spike with her rear hoof. He grabbed a small cloth and stood on his tiptoes to wipe her forehead off. Happy, Twilight set the bone cutter aside and examined the now nearly empty chest of the patient. With her ribs and stuff clear, only the heart and lungs remained, and therein lay the prize Twilight was after.
Sickly beat the heart of Twilight’s poor patient. It was slow and labored, like a dying stallion heaving his last breath. There was a large black spot near the left ventricle, evidence of an earlier case of acute myocardial infarction. Twilight knew the risks when she had elected to do surgery, but there wasn’t any other option. If she didn’t replace this dying heart soon, it would spell the end of her friend’s life, and she wasn’t about to let that happen.
Invigorated by a renewed sense of purpose, Twilight confidently swiped the scalpel from the tray along with a couple of hemostats. She handed the hemostats to Spike and said, “This is where I need you the most. I’m going to remove her heart now, and I need you to place these on the aorta, and the vena cava as soon as I cut them to stop the blood flow.” Her eyes were hard and serious as she added, “I’m not letting her die today. Not like this.”
Spike nervously took the pair of hemostats and moved to the opposite side of the operating table. He clenched his jaw then nodded. “I’m ready.”
Twilight returned the nod then bent over the patient, scalpel at the ready. With slow, precise movements, she deftly dodged the lungs and went straight for her heart. Two quick slits later and she had freed it from its fleshy prison.
Spike acted quickly to stem the bleeding, placing the clamps on the two large blood vessels. He looked up to see Twilight carefully excising the heart, removing it from the patient’s chest with her two bloody hooves.
Twilight set the heart in a metal bin and motioned for Spike to get the new heart. He pulled the fresh heart from its icy coffin just as a loud beep resonated through the operating room. Again, it beeped, and again, but later this time. Twilight’s eyes went wide.
“No...” she whispered.
She rushed over to the electrocardiogram and studied the various lines it was producing... or wasn’t producing. Without a heart, the patient’s vital signs were plummeting. Her oh-two levels were dropping rapidly and her blood pressure was in freefall.
“No no no no no no no!” Twilight cried frantically. She rushed back to the operating table and quickly grabbed the new heart from Spike.
With reckless abandon, she haphazardly shoved the new heart in place and began to suture the blood vessels back in place. All the while, the relentless whine of the ECG filled the room. Twilight chanced a look over her shoulder and saw the patient’s vital signs had all flatlined. She looked back to the bright red heart that now occupied her chest and whispered, “Why aren’t you working?”
Spike frantically threw his arms in the air. “What do we do?”
Twilight glanced back and forth between him and the motionless patient. “I... don’t know,” she confessed. Suddenly, her eyes lit up as if she had just gotten the greatest idea in the world. She shot a glance at Spike. “Grab the crash cart!” she shouted.
He nodded hurriedly and ran off to find the aforementioned cart.
Twilight turned back to her patient and began closing up the chest and replacing all the stuff. Just as she was done removing the surgical hooks and had started suturing her chest back together, Spike burst back into the room with the sacred crash cart.
She finished closing the patient’s chest as quickly as she could then lifted the defibrillator paddles from the cart. One held in each hoof, Twilight readied the paddles and shouted, “Charge!” Spike hit a button, sending large amounts of electricity surging through the metal bottom of the paddles. “Clear!” Twilight surged forward without waiting to see if Spike was actually clear and pressed the paddles to her friend’s chest.
As the electricity jumped from the paddles to her body, she jumped, but her vitals remained unchanged. Twilight’s face hardened. “Charge! Clear!” Again, she jumped, but then lay still. “Again!”
“Twilight...”
“Again!”
Bzzt!
Nothing.
“Again!”
“Twilight!”
Spike placed his claw on Twilight’s shoulder and pulled her away. She was sobbing, tears streaming down her face like raindrops. “No!” she shouted, pushing Spike away.
He grabbed her shoulder more firmly and pulled again. “She’s gone,” he said quietly.
“No,” Twilight said, more to herself than Spike. “No,” she repeated, more softly this time. Twilight threw the paddles to the ground. Hearing them clatter against the linoleum floor only made her angrier. “No!” she cried again, throwing herself on the operating table. “No! No! No! N—”
Just then, the operating room door flung open and silenced Twilight. She removed herself from her lifeless friend and turned to see her father standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the light like an angel.
“Daddy?” she whispered.
He looked around the room, at Spike, then back to Twilight. “What are you guys up to? And what was all that shouting about?”
Suddenly forgetting all about her dead friend, Twilight giggled happily. “We were playing doctor!” she explained enthusiastically. “Spike was my assistant!”
Spike nodded in agreement, grinning ear to ear.
Her father eyed her for a moment, then burst out laughing. “I see you’re making the best of your summer vacation. What kind of surgery was it, can I ask?”
“Open heart surgery,” Twilight said nonchalantly. “She had an acute myocardial infarction that was causing her to have arrhythmia and low blood pressure. I removed her heart and replaced it with a new one.”
“Did it go well?”
“Smarty Pants didn’t make it.” She pointed to the doll lying in a pile of its own fluff.
“I see, that’s too bad.” He chuckled. “Well, better luck next time.”
Twilight grinned. “Oh, it’s okay. She’s magic, she’ll be fine.”
“That’s good.” He reached down and plucked the green bed sheets from Twilight and Spike’s bodies then said, “I’m going to go put these in the wash. Your mother wants you both downstairs for dinner though, so hop to it.”
“Okay!” said Twilight and Spike in unison, then they hurried past her dad and down the stairs where a hot meal was waiting for them, something Spike was more than happy to take part in.
With the two kids gone, Twilight’s dad shook his head slowly while looking at Smarty Pants. “I don’t know why you put up with her,” he said jokingly. “Sometimes I wonder how you’re even still in one piece.” Smarty Pants didn’t respond. “Oh well, at least you’re not her only friend now. She has Spike too. And maybe someday, she’ll have even more friends than that.” He hefted the linens over his shoulder then added, “Stay with her, won’t you?” before walking away.
