text: “Richard, up,” the nurse commanded as she fondled with the IV in my arms, making sure there were no kinks in the hose that was pumping whatever substance into me. I grunted and gathered my might as I pushed my back off of the slanted hospital bed so she could check the needles in my spine. Her cold, skilled hands stung as they expertly adjusted what was needed. “Someone’s grumpy,” the nurse teased condescendingly. “I know it’s your 5-year anniversary of being here today, but there’s no need to spread your annoyance to others.” “5 years, Annie” I sighed. “5 years of this concrete room.” The nurse muttered in agreement as my eyes scanned over the walls with their stupid blue floral wallpaper, peeling on the edges of the baseboards, mirroring my exhaustion. There was no light here. The wall that separated me from the outside world was windowless. I hadn’t felt the real sun in ages; my condition wouldn't allow me (something about extreme photosensitivity). I rolled my eyes. I remember a couple years back the hospital plastered paintings of nature around the room, trying to mimic what I was missing out on, but I took it as a cruel mocking of my loss. It was as if they were teasing me with realistic renditions of sunsets and forests when I just wanted to forget nature as it forgot me. “Open up,” Annie said as her slender brown fingers that gripped a spoon airplaned into my unwilling mouth, brushing my grown-out, grey stubble. “Richard, you have to swallow,” she whined and tipped my head back forcefully. I didn’t yelp or flinch; this happened almost daily. I was used to the invasive poking and prodding. The sour liquid with floating pills burned my throat as it slid down my esophagus, spreading to my problematic system. I always took it unwillingly, never adopted the compliance that other patients seem to develop out of tiredness and defeat. I was not so easy. Another nurse, Gertrude, a middle-aged plump woman who seemed like her job was the best in the world, bounded in through the open dividing door, eager to hear the blandest of news. “Hello, Gert,” I greeted sarcastically; they all knew I’d rather be left alone. “I told you to never call me that,” she smiled and playfully brushed my shoulder in a sort of hesitant shove. The nurses professionally greeted each other and carried on with their agendas. “So how are we today, Annie?” She looked me up and down. “The same as ever,” Annie said bluntly and cocked her neck at an angle, gazing at me longingly. “You don’t ever change, do you,” she sighed and rested her hand on my knee. “Not when you don’t let me,” I chuckled out snarkily. Gertrude tsk-tsked through her botox-filled mouth and puffed up her hair while Annie reviewed health paperwork with her. My eyes drifted in and out of darkness; this happened often. With all the drugs they were circulating through me, my body never felt fully awake or energized. It didn’t help that the room was devoid of sunshine. The wheelchair in the corner of the room drew my gaze. It had been propped and folded up against the wall waiting to be used but had never got the chance. My eyelids consumed my vision to black once again. “Richard,” my love whispers back. Her arms are covered in scabs and bags hung under her eyes. Everything is in slow motion and rippled, like being underwater, yet the sound was as clear as day. “Gloria, you can’t leave me,” the recalled words left my mouth without realization. “You can’t be taken away from me this early, not yet.” A sob escaped my mouth and was followed by a whimper. My hands unexpectedly reach out and caress her balding head. “I can’t watch you leave me.” I shut my eyes tight. The line went flat, and she went flat. As simple as that. No dramatic rush of doctors like the movies, no frantic beeping of the hospital equipment, no dramatic last words murmuring out of her thin, cracked lips. Just a breath, then nothing. The bright fluorescents break the dream and snap my consciousness back to reality with a subtle gasp, the hospital monitor spiking and cooling. “Bad dream?” Annie rested a hand on my chest, feeling around for my breathing pattern as she always did. I cleared my throat. “Bad memory,” I said and the conversation stopped there. Before long my monotonous day turned into night (not that I could ever tell, everything was always exactly the same here) and night turned into morning once more, the only signal of dawn was the analog clock hung high on the wall. But the dream from before was gnawing at my brain. 20 years. It had been two entire decades since that night. The underwhelming qualities of the situation stuck with me ever since. The absence of her gnawed at my chest every waking minute of my dreadful life. Partners for life, until that life is taken away, and to leave me... stranded? Why was I the one who had to stick around? The one who was to be cooped up in a medical facility like some brain-dead specimen? What was the point of living when your center of gravity had been knocked out of course and was now in a different solar system? “Richard! What are you doing?” Annie yelped, grasping my wrist, halting my fingers that were in the midst of punching in a number on the bedside telephone. I dropped the phone in shock. “I didn’t mean to-” I gasped when I saw the five digits displayed on the screen, the numbers that I repeated in my head on the daily. Like a mantra, over and over again as if I’m afraid I will forget them, because I am. Gloria’s telephone number was the only piece of her I had left. For all I know, the number belongs to someone else now. Before I could explain to Annie, Gertrude came bursting through the doors again, grasping a thick stack of papers and wearing a face of worry. Annie and I shared a perplexed expression before she got up to discuss the bustle. They were too far away for me to make out the words clearly, purposefully being secretive, but I could make out words like “clot” and “artery;” I knew this wasn’t going to be good. Annie looked over into my eyes and realized that I knew, and she knew, this was coming to an end. Over the next couple of days we awaited my finale; the rush of doctors, the frantic beeping, the dramatic last words, but my death came just like my Gloria’s: underwhelming and accepted. The final beep of the monitor was silenced forever as Annie’s grasp on my wrist faded from my mind while a bright, brilliant light consumed my vision. The sunlight blinded out my life, scorching the remnants away. The tall grass beneath my feet was lusciously green and the sky had never seemed so blue. The colors were oversaturated and bathed in sun. That little ball of power devoured any corner of darkness in the meadow where I now stood. I heard a noise across the clearing. My head jerked upwards to meet a small figure in the distance. I squinted my eyes to try to focus on the woman, my woman. My heart did not race as I walked in slow motion, through the ripples to slowly re-greet Gloria; the light of my life, my center of orbit, my sun.