Don't go towards the light.
The man got onto the metro, and thought of nothing but which stop he would get off at, Tetuan. His mind was perhaps too sleepy to do anything else. He leaned against the pole until his stop, where he followed the flow of people off the train and into the harsh, terrible light. Never the first, but hardly the last to get off. Maybe he should leave earlier next time. The sunrise was chasing him and he could never quite escape it. He hurriedly walked to the building with the big glass sliding doors and loud crosses. Once he stepped inside, the knot tying his shoulders together gently released. He walked to his corner chair, sat down, and closed his eyes for a moment before picking up a magazine from the end table. He didn’t even bother to look at the cover. It didn’t matter much. Smiling slightly as the artificial, fluorescent lights breathed a sort of life into him, he breezed through the pages. He let the minutes slip through his fingers, past the glossy pages. He checked his watch every so often, and at 3:02 he laid his current magazine down, rested his palms on his thighs, and let his eyes open a little bit wider.
“Mr. Goyes, you can see her now, but not for too long. She needs to rest.”
“Thank you. Thanks. How did the surg-“ He choked on his words, “Is she ok?”
“She’s ok now. These next few hours are critical. We won’t know for certain until later.”
“Oh. Mhm.”
“Follow me, I’ll show you there.”
His feet led him down some hall and through the door into her room. At first it seemed as thought he might need a push to get through the doorway, but seconds later he materialized in the chair next to her bed.
“Maggie, you look beautiful.”
“Don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes were closed, and he could have sworn for a second his were too. The room felt foggy, and he couldn’t quite get the right words out.
“I don’t know what to say.” He rested his hand next to hers, barely brushing it. “How do you feel?”
“Ok.”
“Oh.” He held his breath. “Just know-“
“Oh.”
“Maggie? Maggie? Are you ok? Maggie!”
He stumbled out of the room, and ended up back in the waiting room. He flipped through the same magazine, rocking back and forth slightly. He let the fluorescent lights wash over his pallid skin. The man stayed in his seat until 6pm, at which time he forced himself to stand, and walk out the glass doors. The metro violently cradled him until finally he was on his street, entering the horrid darkness of his apartment. The dark attempted to conceal the vast emptiness of his home, but even when he closed his eyes he could feel it.
He lay in bed for hours, in the seminal space between sleep and waking. In the morning he rose again at seven, with the doubt that he had slept at all clinging to his back like a sweaty shirt.
At eight, the man got onto the metro, and thought of nothing but which stop he would get off at, Tetuan. His mind was perhaps too sleepy to do anything else.
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