<< Go Back

In Search of the Hidden Moon

By Tim Eichenbrenner

Order Now!

Chapter One
Hillsborough, North Carolina
Late August 2021
The exam room door suddenly swung wide, the first in a series of
events that would change my life’s trajectory. A gaunt and elderly
man rushed out and down the hall, his thin strands of gray hair
swirling in disarray. I turned and joined the chase, with my nurse Sarah
ahead of me calling out, “Mr. Harrelson, please . . . stop!” The man ducked
and weaved like Tom Brady avoiding a pass rusher, his gown flapping open
behind him and revealing way too much backside for the little ladies in
the waiting room witnessing the race. We caught him at the front door. I
grabbed the door handle and Sarah gently secured his forearm. She looked
at me, nodded once, and said, “We make a pretty good team, Dr. Gil.”
Yes, we were a good team. I had first met Sarah Taylor two years earlier,
during the interview process for a position I was after at Hillsborough Fam-
ily Care. She’d been with the practice for twenty years. Lucky for me, she
drew the short straw and was assigned to be the newbie’s nurse. I’d heard in
my residency training that nurses not only kept doctors straight, but also
kept them out of malpractice court. As a rookie physician, I’d scoffed at
the notion, but since discovered it to be true. If I could count on my fin-
gers, I could always count on Sarah to save my bacon. But chasing down a
half-naked patient before he escaped from the office—that took our work
relationship to a whole new level.
We finished the first half of our day’s schedule and sat in the lunchroom,
rehashing some of that morning’s encounters.
“Did you see the look on Mrs. McIntyre’s face when Mr. Harrelson
streaked across the waiting room? I thought we were going to have to do
CPR,” Sarah said. “What was that all about, Dr. Gil?”
1
In Search of the Hidden Moon
“When we returned to the exam room, Mr. Harrelson told me he saw
something out the window that spooked him, so he ran.”
She arched her eyebrows. “What in the world was it?”
I chuckled, shook my head, and then looked back at Sarah. “Mr. Harrel-
son said he got bored waiting for me and started looking for things to keep
him busy. He snuck a peek through the window blinds and saw a guy in a
hoodie and sunglasses walking down the street, carrying a large backpack.
Thought it was unusual to be dressed that way on a late summer day, and
that he looked like one of those suicide bombers he’s seen on television.”
“Seriously?” Sarah said. “A suicide bomber in our little town? How
funny is that? It’d be like spotting Jeff Bezos in a soup kitchen. I think Mr.
Harrelson’s been watching too much cable news.”
I nodded and started to speak when the loudest sound I’d ever heard
rattled the office windows and interrupted our lunch. I grabbed Sarah and
threw us both to the floor.
———
I’d moved to Hillsborough from Chapel Hill the previous year. It was
north of the university town, not far off Interstate 85. I commuted my first
year of work, waiting to commit to a move until I knew the practice and
I were compatible. The charm of a town morphing into a small city, with
restaurants, breweries, and specialty shops popping up like mushrooms after
a wet spell, drew me in. My medical office was near the end of Main Street,
surrounded by the few surviving trade and manufacturing businesses that
employed many people in our community. They were good people. Ordi-
nary Americans. People who went to work every day to provide for their
families. A furniture plant sat back from the road a short distance from my
office. Scattered buildings thinned and gave way to the Piedmont’s flatlands,
with fields of soybeans, cotton, and tobacco dotting the landscape. It was a
town where neighbors knew one another, watched out for each other, shared
meals, and worshiped together. Doors weren’t locked at night—it wasn’t
considered the neighborly thing to do. So a bomb exploding didn’t even
make the top ten of things I thought could’ve caused the noise.
2
Tim Eichenbrenner
I rushed outside with my co-workers. The furniture plant was in flames,
with cotton balls of smoke billowing from holes in the roof into the Caroli-
na-blue sky. My senior partner, Dr. Arnie Schmidt, yelled at us to get to the
scene, adding that he’d handle the patients still at the clinic. Wood and wires
crackled and sparked, people yelled, and victims screamed. Instinctively, we
all ran toward the danger. I stopped and fumbled for my phone, dialed 911,
and resumed running, knowing whatever we’d find wouldn’t be pleasant.
People staggered from the building, some bleeding. Clothing smoldered.
Burning and partially shattered wooden beams lay strewn on the ground
like pickup sticks dumped on a dusty carpet. The smoke and the smell of
burned flesh brought tears to my eyes and seared my nostrils. I grabbed my
handkerchief from my pocket and covered my nose and mouth. Victims lay
on the ground, some clearly beyond triage and others moaning in agony.
The scene was chaotic and unorganized.
Focus and stay calm. This is what I was trained to do. “Do your best to
find survivors and triage them so the medics will know who to prioritize for
routing them to Chapel Hill . . . but please be careful,” I yelled.
I found one man crumpled on the ground, lying on two charred wooden
beams, one crossed over the other. I quickly assessed his injuries, their enor-
mity almost overwhelming. His face’s olive complexion was streaked red
from a gaping head laceration, and blood from a side wound ran like red
paint through what remained of his shirt. I left him against his wooden cross,
fearful of injuring him further were he to be moved. Beneath singed eye-
brows, his pitch-black eyes stared back and pleaded with me before he even
spoke. In a whisper, he said, “They . . . after me . . . the girls, Peru . . . please,
find . . .” I asked him his name, but before he could answer, he assumed a
fixed stare—those black eyes now open windows to an empty room.
I lost him. He was in my hands, and I lost him.
Other victims’ screams snapped me back into focus. It was then I noticed
something in the man’s shirt pocket. Instinctively, I grabbed a tattered photo
of two girls and the victim, stuck it in my lab jacket pocket, bowed my head,
and said a brief prayer. More accurately, I registered a complaint: I realize
death is a natural part of life. I’ve faced it professionally and, even more pro-
3
In Search of the Hidden Moon
foundly, personally. But this, God? Why do You let such awful things happen in
this world?
A ray of sunshine reflected off a small, silver cross necklace dangling to
the side of the victim’s neck. I removed it and stuck it in my pocket too.
He was gone, but the other victims needed my attention. I had to stay
on task, but this sense of sudden loss was stirring emotions I’d done my best
to suppress. With work still to be done, I’d have to subjugate those feelings
once again.

Order Now!

<< Go Back