Dim light streamed through the window of my former apartment, its soft, cold rays alighting on walls pock-marked by age and deep umber flooring of vivid contrast to those walls. It was clear to see this day was one of gloom, of overcast skies and a frigid, deep-set chill.
With a hand swept across my polished head, I sighed. Nothing, none. Nada. Not a morsel of hair there, and barely a thing to my name as it was. What use did someone such as myself have for worldly possessions? This apartment was the last thing to let go, and to me, it seemed as if the notches in the walls, worn flooring and other such things told the story of a life; Its throes of joy and bouts of anger, its sorrowing defeats and routs.
I turned to leave the last tether I had to everything. The sound of the door closing felt anticlimactic, soft as it was. I had expected closing the door to an era of my life to be impactful, to feel weighty and make itself known. But it did not. My expectations now did not often align with reality, slipping its confines.
The trudge to the car was similarly uneventful. Everything carried on as it always had, uncaring for my plight and the emotional turmoil that broiled beneath the calm I projected to the world. Cars tottered by on neighbouring streets, birds chirped their pitched tunes perched high on power lines, whilst the wind whistled its displeasure through alleys. But this uneventfulness, no matter how it made me feel small and insignificant, brought with it a sense of pleasure. It was as it had always been, even before my current woes, bringing to mind a time when life had not pressed down on me so.
Seated in the plush, worn seats of my car, I reminisced, my mind drawing itself back to the past. Then I grounded that line of thought to a halt; it only made it harder to accept what was happening. As I set to driving, the air seemed to grow imperceptibly colder, and my breath fogged against the air to rise in a billowing stream.
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The hospital loomed. Such a place should give comfort to a person, give them a feeling of security and whisper to them that they will be fine, that they will live, but for some reason I could not Identify, it was the opposite for me. Above the entrance a plus sat, shining through the gloom of the day like a beacon of hope. It was crimson. The colour of blood. Merely looking at it engendered the feeling that it was a vampire, primed and ready to suck my body of what little blood was left.
I grasped the cracked and bubbled leather of the steering wheel in the hopes that it would centre me, steel me to leave the car and stride into the hospital. It worked, to an extent. My pulse slowed, the perspiration building on my hands lessening, and my breath lightened a touch. Then I left. In the wintry air once more, I thought it akin to a morgue; cold and dry, suited to preserve corpses. And I let a hoarse chuckle escape my throat.
_
His voice was drab, monotone without an inch of emotion given, spouting medical jargon that went in one ear and out the other. I scarcely paid attention; long ago I’d gained the skill to tune it out. Nothing he said was important, anyway. And he seemed to realise it, in time.
“Look,” he said, “I’m aware this is hard for you. But you just have to accept the situation.”
I lifted my eyes from my clasped hands, meeting his own. Mine were bloodshot, draped by eyebags years in the making and wrought to near-black by sickness. His were not. He seemed not to care for this, and instead only cared about delivering his words punctually, not deigning to give false hope to a deigning man. And it was the right thing to do. But I wanted him to care. I wanted someone to care. It would make it all the more bearable.
We left the room shortly thereafter, traversing the linoleum lined flooring of the corridors, and all the while I looked back towards the entrance, sorely wishing I could go back to the days when all I had to worry about was the apartment.