[center][color=7fffd4][img]https://i.imgur.com/clI3QC6.gif[/img][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/180221/a46142aaace99e0c4f5e7573c9cb9f89.png[/img][img]https://i.imgur.com/6sGAknD.gif[/img][/color]
[hr]


Was there anything as depressing as a rice cake? There never seemed to be anyone under the age of ninety that was excited to find a rice cake mixed in with their food. Even when people got creative and added peanut butter or other toppings to spice up the puffed cake of rice it was hardly an exciting prospect. It was like a child finding an apple in their brown bag instead of the Little Debbie pastry that they know is in the house. A disappointment. A depressing reminder that better snacks were available but for some reason rice cakes won out in the end. Was there anything more depressing than a rice cake? 

Eugene Kim glanced down at her collar just in time to brush off a medium-sized piece of rice cake. She had taken a generous bite and that was her reward, crumbs on the floor and a few specs on the collar of her shirt. Fortunately one of the perks of having a private office was not having to care about being overly clean. While her office was clean, the fact that there was a cleaning staff meant she didn't have to stress over a crumb on the floor; instead she could stress over what the crumb represented.

It wasn't even eleven in the morning and she was holed up in her office eating a Quaker rice cake like a mouse eating a cracker. Sometimes Eugene envied her employees who always seemed to have enough free time to enjoy simple things like breakfast or the company of others. They probably didn't have rice cake and lukewarm tea for breakfast. Legally she wasn't allowed to stay at work for an excess number of hours but she was more comfortable in her office than she was at her apartment. There were pictures in her office, leftover from the previous chief who was clearly fond of lighthouse landscapes, while her apartment still didn't even have a television let alone anything to make it seem lived in. 

Her desk was more of a dining room table than the table in her kitchen. 

The cafeteria was open, but having gotten out of a surgery only an hour ago the only thing Eugene wanted to do now was try to have something resembling a meal. Something told her she was going to need the energy. The board today was miraculously light thanks to a rescheduling stemming from an insurance and familial issue. If she were the superstitious type she might have taken that as an omen be it ill or fortuitous. The nurses and doctor had their superstitions of course, but the only thing a light surgical schedule meant was that people weren't shoving things where they shouldn't be shoved. 

The world laughed as Eugene's pager beeped just as she took the final bite of her wholly unsatisfying rice cake. Eugene was up and out of the door before she even parsed the whole message. Trauma and triage spoke for themselves. They spoke even louder when they came from just above her pay grade. If Eugene was being requested it had to be serious. 

Eugene was putting on her emergency garb as she entered the trauma center, the calm rice-cake fan from the office replaced by the stern faced Dr. Kim. [color=7fffd4][b]"Dr. Ivanov."[/b][/color] Wonders seldom ceased. She didn't expect Alex to be first on site but she wasn't about to voice that aloud. [color=7fffd4][b]"The fun never stops."[/b][/color] It was as close to a pithy comment that Eugene Kim had ever gotten.[/center]