I Missed You

I was devoured by the hospital’s white light, sucked into limbo at the instant of my death. Corridors too thin, and the voice of the receptionist like the pounding of a waterfall. “How are you related to the patient? Is she expecting you? What is your name?” My answers, all lies. Lies that opened the way to an empty room.

There had to have been some hint in her voice, some gesture or movement of her eyes that would have told me one way or another. She sent me to a specific room. You must have been there. Did she not know? Were you in surgery, the bathroom, the morgue? Were you driving home from a false alarm?

I saw only what was directly in front of me. The air was liquid, all sounds and words stretched out into incoherence. I saw the bed was made, the sheets pulled tight as a fake smile. I heard a distant beeping. Everything sterile, inscrutable. I felt nothing, saw little, heard noise. I stood there staring at a white bed in an empty room, and then I left. If there was any clue for me there, I missed it. If there was some remnant of your presence, I missed that, too.
Four hours later, I was on a flight to the end of the world.