Months To Years (Online / Print) February 2018
Half
of these people are already half dead he thinks, watching them watch each other
stare out the tall plate glass of the hospital’s east pavilion solarium into
the rapidly fading mid-March sunset; the other half is already further gone
than that, but remain resolutely unwilling or merely incapable of simply
accepting facts.
He
goes down two levels in the oncology elevator and sits silently with the
waiters and worriers, sees how long he can hold his breath waiting for a
specialist to find and read a chart, to suggest a cure or announce an imminent
demise, or to otherwise free him from his tedium and chafe. Here, at least, two
levels down, where the truth is at last both known and spoken, there is far
less opportunity for being blinded by the false light from above, as there is
no such light to be found. Here, at least, everyone knows.
There
are, he knows, many other rooms; many other even lower levels, most with even
far less light. This he knows with certainty. Armed with this awareness, he contents
himself with his current level of twilight.