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wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Wonderful Starfish
@wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
120 followers 130 following 2.9K posts
Psych RN, writer, gamer, parent. Up late on the socials while rocking a fussy baby.

#ReportableEvents- a horror/comedy flash fiction project.

Also, don't use ChatGPT for therapy.
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wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
So, uh, this seems to have generated some confusion.

I'm not looking to *create* something like this, just asking to find existing examples.

Like this cover of Fellowship depicting one of the earliest scenes. I'm sure there are other examples of this phenomenon.
Cover of the Fellowship of the Ring, 1993 edition, Ballantine books. The picture depicts Gandalf testing the Ring in Bag End, and event that happens in chapter 2 out of 22. It's basically the inciting incident of the quest (from Frodo's perspective at least) but there are a lot more dramatic and visually interesting scenes... like, say, almost any other scene.
November 17, 2025 at 10:51 PM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 44

Original Post 10/20/2017

"First Clinical Day in East"

In which East continues to be a hole.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
First Clinical Day in East I’m worried that having my clinical in East is going to throw off my whole semester. It’s such a horrible place that I’m always on edge. Five minutes in to my first official clinical day and I already almost flipped out. I was shadowing with an RN and she was showing me one of the patient rooms. She started with the wall switches by the door. “Remember from left to right they go lights, screaming, oxygen.” She flipped the switches as she went, turning on the lights, the unearthly howling, and the hiss of oxygen from the wall. I almost lost it. That’s such a stupid thing to have controlled by a switch by the door. I mean you could come in fumbling for the light and accidentally turn off their oxygen. That could seriously hurt someone. Also, that screaming switch seems weird to but I don’t know enough about the therapeutic value of screams to complain about it yet.
November 16, 2025 at 11:40 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 43

Original Post 10/18/2017

"Halloween is coming"

In which I would have sworn I posted this one already.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Halloween's Coming Posters for the Halloween festivities are going up. Mostly they just list places of sanctity where you can hide from the vengeful spirits: the chapel, phlebotomy, the imaging suite, the Starbucks in the lobby, the walk-in freezer, and the secret sub basement we aren’t allowed to know about. Also there were some pretty draconian restrictions on costumes, especially women’s. I feel uncomfortable about that.
November 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 42

Original Post 10/16/2017

"No Rest for the Weary"

In which nurses are like this for real.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
#nursing
No Rest for the Weary If you ever want to start a pissing contest between nurses, just complain about being tired. Every nurse in earshot will descend to top each other’s complaint. Darius was halfway through a double shift, Pam was on her third double this week, Heather has worked 80 hour weeks for a month, and Arlene hasn’t had a day off since May. Then Janice came by and said she hadn’t had a day off since 1978. I asked her how someone could handle that. She paused for a moment to think about it, then crumbled into dust. Now everyone’s mad at me because we’ll have to take extra shifts to cover for Janice.
November 12, 2025 at 11:14 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 41

Original Post 10/13/2017

"Worst Day Ever"

In which calamity strikes.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Worst Day Ever Some days I don’t know why I even get out of bed. I got my clinical posting: I’m working in East.
November 11, 2025 at 7:28 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 40

Original Post 10/12/2017

"Orientation Day"

In which we are introduced to things we already know.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Orientation Day Today was orientation day for my clinical section. It was supposed to be on the 6th but obviously wolf week delayed that. As expected, it was fairly awkward for me as I’ve already worked here so a lot was pretending not to know things so I don’t come off as arrogant. I’ll admit though, I was curious to see what they would show us on day one. For the most part, it was pretty much what I expected, hitting all the highlights: the main atrium of The Lobby, a post surgical floor in North, the cafeteria, the secret sub basement no one is supposed to know about, med rooms, staff rooms, and one of the conference rooms where we’ll be holding our post clinical debriefings. Well, we didn’t actually go into all of those places of course; the cafeteria is still closed. Tomorrow we’ll find out where we’re going to be posted for the semester. While it would certainly be easy to work in South where I already know everyone, I’m hoping for one of the units in North where they do interesting stuff that’s different from my usual practice. Really, I think I’d be fine anywhere, as long as I’m not stuck in East.
November 10, 2025 at 9:18 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 39

Original Post 10/11/2017

"Why You Don't Give Doctors Your Cell Number"

In which direction communication is an issue and we explore the limits of our medium.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Why You Don't Give Doctors Your Cell Number A screen shot from Jamie's phone. It is 4.13 AM and the phone is at 56% percent battery. A text message chain from Dr Varma reads: Jamie, can you please come up to South 5? Please bring the following: Car battery 2 Litres holy water All the IV Zofran you can find Cattle prod or Taser 1 kilo ground beed Ball point pen (Every word in the message is capitalized) Jamie responds: I can't find a pen The text message chain concludes with Dr Varma replying: OK, never mind. You can stay on south 3. I'll make do. In the blog Jamie writes: I don't know why she capitalizes every word either.
November 6, 2025 at 10:37 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 38

Original Post 10/9/2017

"Chapel Hunt: The Lobby"

In which we return to an interrupted project.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Chapel Hunt: The Lobby Last week’s events interrupted my midnight lunch break chapel searching but tonight I’ finally got back to it. I’m finishing up with the newest “chapel”: the Ecumenical Interfaith Worship and Meditation Center in The Lobby. I think it’s appropriate to go there on Columbus Day as it’s basically a temple to modern liberal guilt. Everything is carefully sanitized to prevent any appearance of conveying favoritism to any single religion while incorporating as much unnecessary technology as possible. In fact, there are no obviously religious symbols in the room. The closest thing would be the logos on all the touch screens everywhere. The first thing you notice about it is that unlike the other chapels, this space isn’t a conventional rectangular church. Instead it’s more of an amphitheater. The stage (not sure what the church term is for the stage where the altar sits, but it’s clearly a stage right?) is a half hexagon, with stadium seating pews going up on three sides. There are big projection screens above the stage for displaying scripture or mantras or any other quasi-religious PowerPoints the speaker wants to throw up there. The pews are a little wider than normal so they can serve as meditation mats as well as benches. The upshot of that is that they are a little too wide to sit on regularly and too narrow for sitting on cross legged. Oh, they also have touch screens in the back. There’s a placard out front that has the architect’s design notes. It begins: “The goal of this project was to deconstruct the concept of ‘religious space’ by deconstructing the concepts of ‘religion’ and ‘space’. I wanted to expose the inherent flaws in the outdated structure of the fundamental dichotomy between pastor and flock.” It goes on that way for about three feet of 14 point type. The conclusion thanks the various corporate sponsors in the tech industry, which explains the touch screens in the podium, backs of pews, and the altar itself. As an upside, it’s one of the few places in the hospital that isn’t haunted. Apparently the massive electromagnetic field it puts out means that ghosts can’t enter. The downside is that you really can’t stay in the room more than ten minutes before your fillings start to itch.
November 4, 2025 at 9:18 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 37

Original Post 10/6/2017

"Wolf Week, Addendum"

In which saying "we're good" may have been premature.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Addendum So you know how I said we were finished with the lycanthropy outbreak? Well it turns out we missed one. It looks like no one bothered to admit the guy in the cafeteria. Come on people! I talked about this just the other day. Does no one at work read my blog? So this guy turned into an eight foot tall man-wolf monstrosity and began rampaging through the halls. Dr Varma had to stalk him through East and eventually cured him by pinning him down and shocking him with a silver plated defibrillator of her own design. My contribution was sitting at home watching old episodes of Scrubs and assigning people I work with to the characters. The cafeteria worker is recovering, though he’s probably fired, and the cafeteria will be closed next week while they disinfect it. The upshot is that anyone on the day shift should bring their own lunches, because lines at the Starbucks are going to be huge.
November 2, 2025 at 8:02 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 36

Original Post 10/5/2017

"Wolf Week, Conclusion"

In which we're good people, crisis averted.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Conclusion And that’s it! After all the chaos and panic and worry it’s done. Everyone can breathe a little easier today. I’m exhausted but incredibly relieved. Honestly I don’t know how I pulled off an 86 on the exam but somehow I did. That is such a load off my mind. Oh, also that werewolf thing got taken care of. Everyone is all set.
November 1, 2025 at 9:03 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 35

Original Post 10/4/2017

"Wolf Week, Part 7"

In which we're down to the wire here, people.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Part 7 Full moon is almost here and we only have about two dozen patients left undergoing treatment for lycanthropy. Most of them are going to be cleared today, but the team is worried that three of them won’t make it and we’ll have to lock them in isolation rooms and wait out the full moon. Two of them were the last ones discovered, so they’ve been getting the antibiotics for the least time. The last one wasn’t responding to the treatment. We were all really confused until we found out that he had been unclipping his IV and letting the amoxicillin drip onto the floor. Apparently he was getting visions from some ancient wolf god that it said was going to make him its avatar. We put him on bed restraints. They are talking about using some experimental treatments later today. Honestly though, I can barely focus on this because this pathopharm exam is going to kick my ass.
October 31, 2025 at 11:30 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 35

Original Post 10/3/2017

"Wolf Week, Part 6"

In which alternative treatments are explored.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Part 6 It looks like we are going to make it in time with the lycanthropy outbreak. The first patients that we identified have completed their antibiotic courses and have been discharged or sent back to their old rooms. The custodians have also been working overtime disinfecting those rooms so there’s no spread that way. Apparently lycanthropy can live for twenty nine point five days outside a host, so it’s vital that the rooms get thoroughly cleaned. We’re also looking into “alternative therapies” which sounds less ominous in print than it does when Dr. Hanson says it while loading a revolver. He asked me to take some money from petty cash and go around to the local antique stores and pick up any old silverware I can find. I told him that I was pretty sure that the hospital doesn’t have petty cash and he said in that case to see if they’ll take payment in used medical supplies. He also send around a memo asking if anyone has silver fillings. I’m not sure if he wants to melt them down or ask people to try to bite the werewolves first.
October 30, 2025 at 12:32 PM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 34

Original Post 10/2/2017

"Wolf Week, Part 5"

In which people are understandably strained.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Part 5 The outbreak is putting a lot of strain on everyone. The administration is freaking out, nurses and physicians are snapping at each other, and patients are also snapping at each other, but literally in their case. I was in the lounge on South 3, taking fifteen and trying the cram for Pathopharm when someone ran in and said that the new delivery of amoxicillin didn’t arrive. Everyone freaking lost it. People were shouting and swearing and angrily crumpling up papers and kicking doors and Dr Volstead threw himself on the ground screaming “Repent sons of Man, for your doom is upon you! The age of the Wolf has begun. The first of the three signs is upon us and the Fimbulwinter is begun! Death and doom are all that follows for we face now the Gotterdamerung! Repent, oh repent!” Then someone else came in and said the delivery was here it just went to the wrong door. Dr Volstead brushed himself off and went back to his salad. Thanks for scaring us, Alan.
October 29, 2025 at 9:43 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 33

Original Post 10/1/2017

"Wolf Week, Part 4"

In which our antagonist is revealed to be broad spectrum incompetence.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Part 4 We found out what happened with the lycanthropy outbreak. So I turns out that there was a patient with lycanthropy who came in for some tests and somehow his blood sample was left on a food rack and taken down to the kitchen with the empty trays where it was promptly spilled into a tray of jello. Then it was served in East and boom, wolf week. So everyone who ate the jello or shared a room with someone who did got infected (and probably the cafeteria guy who spilled it too). Someone’s probably getting fired over this, but at the moment I’m just busy being smug about how I don’t eat jello.
October 28, 2025 at 9:54 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 32

Original Post 9/30/2017

"Wolf Week, Part 3"

In which cool terminology is rarely used in real life.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Part 3 Still dealing with the lycanthropy outbreak. They shuffled everyone around in the quarantine zone (not what they’re calling it, but come on, how cool is it to be able to say quarantine zone?) so we shouldn’t see any additional outbreaks. Still no luck on finding patient zero (again, they don’t say that at the hospital, but again, see previous statement) though we have it narrowed down to someone in East. And why not? East is the worst. We are going to be down to the wire here to get everyone the full course of amoxicillin before the full moon. If we don’t make it South is going to turn into a festering hive of murder wolves. My role in all this is split between running around hanging new IVs for the antibiotics and running blood samples to various labs. The running back and forth is exhausting, but there’s this girl in phlebotomy who always smiles at me when I come in and that kind of takes my mind off of the brewing plague.
October 27, 2025 at 5:38 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 31

Original Post 9/29/2017

'Wolf Week, Part 2"

In which elaborare quarantines are discussed, if not exactly implemented.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Part 2 We’re still dealing with the lycanthropy outbreak. All staff have to take colloidal silver supplements three times a day (which my professors all say is way too much) as there isn’t really a vaccine for lycanthropy. Also, full contact precautions in South 5 and 6. Still not sure how this started, but we think we have all the affected patients quarantined. I don’t envy the person who had to plan this. So put everyone in one place to stop the spread and start up the Amoxicillin, right? But half of these patients have comorbididies and you have a risk of starting a whole Now you need to have sub quarantines for the MRSA patients and the Hep C patients and the C Diff patients and wow that sounds like a headache. So hats off to whoever figured that all out. EDIT: well, rescind my last post. It turns out no one actually did that and we just threw all the patients in randomly. This is how antibiotic resistance happens people! I don’t want to have to say that I worked in the hospital that gave the world multi drug resistant lycanthropy.
October 26, 2025 at 12:01 PM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 30

Original Post 9/27/2017

"Wolf Week, Part 1"

In which an outbreak happens at an inconvenient time

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Wolf Week, Part 1 Ho boy, all hands on deck at Libra this week. We have a major outbreak of Hospital Acquired Lycanthropy. I’m going to be there pretty much every second I’m not in class until this is sorted out. I don’t know the full story yet, but we’ve set up a quarantine section in South and have moved everyone infected there. Right now confirmed cases are going on the sixth floor and suspected cases on the fifth floor. I bet that won’t last too long because there are a lot of cases. This couldn’t have come at a worse time, there’s a full moon on the 5th and I have two exams that day.
October 25, 2025 at 12:23 PM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Exciting new research into the possible structure of microscopic Pokémon.
Three brightly colored teething toys of increasing complexity.
October 24, 2025 at 10:57 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 29

Original Post 9/26/2017

"Exhausted"

In which nursing is a tiring profession.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Exhausted So tired. Double shift today. Usually I can catch a power nap in a staff room between shifts, but I was on the fourth floor in South and sleeping in that break room will give you nightmares about a falcon-headed man chasing you through the streets of Boston with a rake. And boy is Boston a confusing city to navigate.
October 23, 2025 at 7:52 PM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 28

Original Post 9/22/2017

"Sad Day"

In which we are comforted by resilience in the face of mortality.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Sad Day I’m having trouble focusing in class today because I just found out that a patient I’ve been working with died last night. It’s always hard to lose someone on your floor, even if it was expected. We all knew he didn’t have much time left, especially The patient himself, who would always say things like “I’ll die in four days and nine hours, that’s when the bargain expires,” and “let me have the metal bedpan. I want something with some heft near at hand for when they come for me.” I’ll miss his calm dignity in the face of death.
October 22, 2025 at 7:17 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reminds me of the time when Red Skull was just Jordan Peterson

(Sorry I don't have bandwidth to alt text this one)
October 16, 2025 at 10:31 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 27

Original Post 9/20/2017

"Alarms and Excursions"

In which strategies for managing caseload are explored.

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
#nursing
Alarms and Excursions So I’ve still been thinking about Alarm Fatigue since last Friday. There’s so much to do in the nursing day between scheduled rounds and documentation, that I understand how easy it could be to ignore a call light or alarm that you’re certain can’t be anything serious. I thought I would ask some of the nurses on South about how they avoid alarm fatigue. Here’s what I heard back from people: Arleen responds to every alarm she hears, at any time. She also stays at least an hour late every shift and has a nervous breakdown once a month. Viktoriya wrote an algorithm that does her documentation for her so she can focus on other tasks. I asked if I could use it but she says it’s dangerously close to sentience as it is. Patty doesn’t respond to any alarms. She had a bad run-in with an Alarm Phantom once (she showed me the scar, it’s pretty bad), and now she just randomly checks on her patients every few minutes. She says that statistically she should catch any call lights or alarms coincidentally. Darius experiences time at half the rate as the rest of us. It lets him get everything done but on the downside, staff meetings last twice as long. Sue-Ellen used a cursed amulet to split herself into her good and evil halves. Both work the same shift with the good half doing rounds and responding to call lights while the evil half does documentation (evil clones love paperwork). They plan to fight to the death at some point but at the moment they are working too many hours to find the time.
October 13, 2025 at 8:14 PM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 26

Original Post 9/18/2017

"Chapel Hunt: North"

In which an uninteresting room leads to an uninteresting post

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
Chapel Hunt: North So I took another stroll through the darkened corridors looking for one of Libra’s many chapels. This time I headed off to North and the New Chapel. It’s only new in relation to the one in South of course, but the name is there. The New Chapel is larger than the Old Chapel, but not as nice. It’s not crummy, like a theoretical East chapel would have been, but it feels like there’s less heart to it. Like the builders had to put one in because hospitals have chapels, but they didn’t really care. I guess if I can respect the idiots who designed East for one thing it’s that they didn’t feel they needed to put in a room they didn’t care about. Good for them I guess? Anyway, back to the New Chapel. I guess the easiest way to describe it is the difference between Greek and Roman pediments. Pediments are those triangle bits on the fronts of temples. The Greeks made whole statues and put them up there. The Roman statues though were one sided, because they figured why waste time carving the side no one was going to see. The Romans had a fair point, but that quality of efficiency over craftsmanship permeates the whole chapel. There are only carpets in the places that get used most often. The stained glass isn’t real and lit electrically. I guess it’s fine if you just want a quiet place to think/pray, but nothing transcendental. Also, the room isn’t well maintained. There is something wrong with how the main cross over the altar is hung. When I came in it was hanging upside down. I tried fixing it but it just flipped over again every time with a sound like Latin being chanted backwards. Someone should talk to janitorial about that. I did mention it to the group of men in black robes who came in as I was leaving. They said they’d pass it along so hopefully that will get dealt with soon.
October 8, 2025 at 4:31 AM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 25

Original Post 9/14/2017

"Alarm Fatigue and Fatiguing Alarms"

In which we ask not for whom the call bell tolls, lest it toll for thee...

#flashfiction
#ReportableEvents
#nursing
Alarm Fatigue and Fatiguing Alarms We spent a lot of time today in class talking about the title of this blog. (That is, we discussed the concept of reportable events, not the blog itself) most of the discussion was about things that lead up to them, and Alarm Fatigue specially. Alarm Fatigue is something I’ve witnessed a fair amount. As you might be able to guess, it’s the phenomenon where nurses stop responding to the endless stream of sirens, alerts, klaxons, and other machine sounds going off at all hours. When you say it first it sounds unconscionable, but its not calous laziness. Instead it’s the response to long hours, numerous false alarms, more signals,than any one person could ever respond to, overlapping spheres of responsibility, and pressure to do a million things at once. If its 5 am, you’ve been on for 12 hours, and you have only an hour to finish all your documentation before the morning shift comes in, maybe some of the less pressing alarms take a lower priority. It’s one if those things like speeding. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to do it but expecting people not to is super unrealistic. What I was surprised didn’t come up was the opposite of alarm fatigue, where instead of ignoring real alarms you respond to an alarm that isn’t there. No one seemed to get what I was talking about. I explained that it’s like when it’s 3 AM and you hear what seems like an O2 sat alarm coming from somewhere far off down the hall. You follow the sound and locate the room is coming from but it’s empty. When you go inside you find yourself trapped in soon kind of web while a hideous thing lurches from the shadows to devour you. It’s why I always keep a pair of surgical scissors in my pocket while on night shifts. No one else said they knew about those. Do other clinical sites not have those?
October 4, 2025 at 7:37 PM
wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social
Reportable Events, episode 24

Original Post 9/13/2017

"Walk like an MRI Technician"

In which writing a synopsis would probably be longer than the post.
Walk Lile an MRI Technician I think our MRI machine is a portal to ancient Egypt. At least, that’s what the jackal-headed mummy who sticks his head out of the MR scanner from time to time claims, and he seems pretty trustworthy.
October 3, 2025 at 6:19 PM