Melvin straightened his stamps along the side of the inkpad -- it had two sections, one with a bright indigo and another with a fiery red. The right angles helped him feel more at ease when he made these decisions. Like things were actually in his control. And, in a way, they were. As the paperwork shuffled into his inbox (his actual inbox, that is: a box into which you could put things) he reviewed piece by piece, stamping them either with a crimson "IMPORTANT!" or a cool blue "low priority" emblem.
He knew each form represented someone's whole life, their health, their ability to soldier on. But he mostly was able to divorce himself from that idea. He had to. If he had to place that kind of importance on each decision, he'd never make it through the stacks and stacks of these claims that seemed to pour in like the tide. And that was his job.
But today, he lingered over one particular submission, and lingering made it harder to go with a gut decision. If you got thoughtful, if you got emotional, if you got personal... there went your afternoon. And so many others' applications would go unchecked.
Still, Agnes Appleby's form gave him pause. She wasn't a legal citizen. She wasn't technically an urgent patient. But her mother had included a snapshot paper-clipped to the corner of the application. He could see from the expression on the little girl's face that she needed their help. He couldn't fully justify turning her down, or sending her claim through.
Melvin's shoulders sagged as he considered the stamps and the inkpad. Finally, he reached for one, and plunged it into the blue ink, leaving a purple-stained "IMPORTANT!" in the middle of Agnes' claim. She didn't meet the criteria. But that didn't mean she wasn't important.
For https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-201-5-minute-freewrite-tuesday-prompt-important
