The silence after the stent

There’s a moment in the cath lab—after the wire’s pulled, the pressure’s down, the monitor’s steady—that isn’t relief. It’s not peace either. It’s a kind of listening. Like the heart knows it’s been touched and is deciding whether to remember or forget. I stood there last night, watching the rhythm settle, and thought: this is what music feels like when it stops being about notes and starts being about breath. The city outside smelled like wet concrete and diesel. I didn’t want to leave.