Chapter 6

Ice Cream Date

The hospital was nothing like the one he was used to. Back home, the receptionist was more plastic than the purified water dispenser. 

Here, there was no openness, no space, nothing shone or had the smell of disinfectant. Instead, the way in was down a long hallway so narrow that if a wheelchair or trolley were to come another way, he’d have to dip into a side room to let it go by. 

The walls were once painted. He could tell that from the cream flakes that remained, though mostly they showed the grey undercoat or perhaps the concrete beneath that. 

The floor was uneven from so much traffic with both feet and wheels, and it was darker than a mausoleum. The air was stagnant, like it had just gone into the pit. 

There were no hand sanitizers on the walls. How did they prevent the spread of germs here, he wondered—possibly they didn’t. From