Writing Feedback / Narrative Essay (Warning: slightly depressing)! [11]

Okay, I'm having several issues with this piece. It's a narrative essay for my Comp class.
1.) It's only supposed to be 500 words but this is 800. I'm having trouble slimming it down without letting the important details go.
2.) My professor also wants us to maintain a constant point of view--do I do this?
3.) Are there any better words I should have used?
4.) I don't know if I followed the dialogue rules

I know it is a sad piece, but please feel free to pick it apart. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

**I know the paragraphs should be indented but I'm having trouble doing it on this site, so excuse it!

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They say that hospitals have an unbearable smell to them, but the truth is, on June 30, 2009, the only thing I could smell as I was sitting in room 208 of the ICU department was nothing.

I smelled absolutely nothing.

What was masking the apparent hospital smell will never be known. Possibly, my other senses and feelings were prevailing at the time. Maybe it was the stinging of my eyes which released the salty warm tears to fall gently to the bottom of my cheeks, or the ache in my heart which seemed to antagonistically develop with each breath as I wept next to his bed. My mind was busy sorting and making sure it has each memory of him on file. I stood next to his bed, and allowed my mind to absorb every detail in his face. Lying there, he appeared so incapable with an incalculable number of tubes, yet ever so peaceful, like he had known God was coming to liberate him. I began to think back.

It was a Friday afternoon, and I had just finished my last college class of the day with nothing planned but a visit to Ottsville. I walked in the beautifully restored farmhouse which he was very proud of, and went into the living room to find him disgusted after watching a special on Michael Jackson's drug habits. He greeted me saying, "It's amazing that people will abuse their only life here on Earth. I don't know why anyone would want to take some of the tick out of their clock, and here I've been fighting for more time, for ten years."

I was snapped out of thought as the neurologist walked into the room wearing her plastic apron, mask, and gloves as her shield against the bacteria. I did not wear this ensemble. Developing an intestinal infection was the least of my worries. The neurologist's words made my knees weak and my heart heavy, and I began to drown her out with the slowing beep of his heart monitor as I was drawn in by the dropping heart rate. His heart stopped in the middle of the night.

He was brain dead.

I went outside to the hospital's garden and sat on the most secluded bench. Suddenly, I noticed that everything seemed so fake: from the two women gossiping in the garden's distant corner, to the whitened smile that the outside café waitress gave to each customer. I began to remember.

One day as my phone rang while I was babysitting, I rushed to answer it in fear that it might wake up the kids. I recalled experiencing the most meaningful phone conversation. He said, "You know life is so short, and we don't get to do this again. People seem to be so indulged with things like money and status while their time on the clock is passing. If only everyone knew how to appreciate the smaller things in life maybe..."

My thoughts came to a halt as I noticed the prettiest little bird fly down within two feet of me. It looked me straight in the eye as it jerked its head from side to side, and then took off into the clear blue sky. At that moment I instinctively rushed back inside to room 208 of ICU to find that my 52-year old father's heart stopped beating due to its strain from an infection, but he appeared to be saved and more peaceful than ever. His ten years of fighting renal cell cancer was a heroic act of strength, and he had been preparing me with some of the most important lessons of my life, as he knew there would be no "later" for him.

Maybe that unbearable hospital smell originates from the soiled linens or the sweat from the feverish patients or the vomit from the chemo patients' basins. Maybe the masking of the smell came from the pain I experienced while watching my father pass away. These people who have experienced this hospital smell may have been leaving the hospital, smelling death, but I stepped out of the hospital and into the outside world, without smelling anything. I left with the beautiful memories of my father and a set of lessons he gave me to live by, including how to live without dwelling on the little things in life, such as a hospital smell.

Writing Feedback / Any suggestions on this "tent" descriptive essay? [5]

Helplessly collapsed in a bundle of poles, rods, tarps and canvas, lays a cluster of a tent, eager to be assembled as the sky was laying its blanket over the sun. A sense of uneasiness floods my mind as I contemplate how this amassment of parts, once assembled, could possibly fulfill its harboring service to me from the nighttime's brutes of the wilderness.

The tent's eagerness proved to be an anchor for its assemblage, as I was pierced by the sight of what used to be a pile of parts waiting in the dusk's limited light. With the impetuous arrival of the dark, the tent arose to its purpose, and the uneasiness in my mind attenuated as the tent's unexpected bold deliverance of security from the darkness and all its creatures beckoned me. The tent's ropes were attached to the four corners of its tarp, where they stretched the tarp's surface area and were then securely fastened to the metal steaks lodged in the ground. The strong but flexible poles formed the skeleton of the tent's upright structure over which the tent's nylon skin was tightly stretched. Collectively, this alert skeleton and skin of beige and green formed my camouflaged warrior of the night. The waterproof skin barricaded me from any water of which Mother Nature intended to expel, and as I lay there in the tent I heard the soft scurries of the night crawlers and critters on the canvas above, trying to make their way in towards my body heat. As I close the tent with a swift sweep, the zipper's screech climbs the musical scale. The design of the tent, with its seams as tight as a drum, will not allow for the entrance of any critters. The musty odor that the noble tent emanates communicates its experience with the outdoors, as if it were trying to instill a sense of comfort with its expertise. Soothing me with its stability and security, my tent as my armor, held me as I doze off, carrying into a deep sleep.

Startled by the ring of my cell phone's alarm, I shot up into an upright position, and looked around at my knight of the night. Tired and weakened, the daylight shone through its thinned nylon canvas which was sagging as it had been saturated with water throughout the duration of the night. The morning sunlight cast shadows of the bugs which had given up their fight on the outside of the tent. The air in the tent was thick and humid and impelled me to unzip its flap, allowing the zipper to screech back down the musical scale. With the tent's opening, a rush of crisp morning air flowed in, battling the tent's stuffy air and taking its place. The ground underneath the tent did not seem so comfortable anymore, now that the daytime offered open space to move about. The tent's deceptive comfort throughout the night masked the aches and pains which came about with morning. I crawl out; leaving behind the weakened warrior and notice it put up a courageous battle with the wind, as the leaves were pasted to left side of the tent. The tent's strength was no longer apparent. It once beckoned me, offering its security for the night, but as daylight revealed its wilted structure, it commanded with its last bit of life, retirement to its helpless cluster of rods, poles, tarps, and canvas.