Vicky liked that summer at the hospital, the first of her internships. She even preferred being at the hospital to going to school, despite the tension and the many sleepless hours and that fevered state of forced insomnia. Some of her colleagues took stimulants—amphetamines, most of them; coffee, everyone; cocaine, some—but she had learned that after a while the lack of sleep became a kind of burning pilot light: she was alert, she smoldered and conserved energy. There was no need to stoke the fire.
