"Imagine having a screaming contest in the middle of a hospital operation? Tsk, could never be me."
The words cut deep.
They weren’t even shouted. That was the part that made them sting—delivered with the dry, offhand calm of someone commenting on the weather, or on a suspiciously gray cafeteria meatloaf.
I laughed anyway. Not because it was funny, but because in hospitals you learn there are only two reliable reflexes: wash your hands, and pretend everything is fine.
In my head I pictured it: two surgeons squared up over an open chest like it was a karaoke duel.
“YOUR SUTURE TECHNIQUE IS EMBARRASSING!”
“OH YEAH? YOUR TONE IS OUT OF NETWORK!”
Somewhere, a nurse would hold up scorecards. The anesthesiologist would be the DJ. A tiny speaker would blast hold music.
Except the room wasn’t a cartoon. It was fluorescent and exact. It was numbers and beeps and a quiet that had rules.
And the person who said it—whoever they were—had said it like a verdict.
"Imagine having a screaming contest…"
Tsk.
Could never be me.
I wanted to be that person. I wanted their distance, their comedy, their implied competence. I wanted to be someone who could judge chaos from the safety of the shore.
But the words cut deep because I recognized myself inside the joke.
Not in the operating room—never there. In my own life.
I had been conducting screaming contests in places that weren’t supposed to echo. I had been turning sacred, careful spaces into arenas: a kitchen at midnight, a hallway in socks, the car parked outside a quiet building while the world pretended not to listen.
The first time it happened, I told myself it was stress.
The second time, I called it a misunderstanding.
The third time, I started timing it.
I would feel the surge rising, like a monitor line climbing. I would hear my own voice sharpen. I would sense the awful moment right before the sound breaks loose, when you still have the choice to swallow it.
And then I wouldn’t.
Some part of me believed volume could substitute for language.
Some part of me believed if I yelled hard enough, the world would finally admit it had hurt me.
"Imagine having a screaming contest…"
The sentence kept replaying, looped like a warning label. It was almost playful—almost.
It was also a mirror.
The next day I tried to change. I tried to do the thing people recommend with the breezy confidence of those who’ve never actually had to do it.
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and then Add to home screen.