The way light hits the hospital corridor at 3 a.m.

I walked past the old surgical wing today—still open, though I haven’t been in it for years—and the fluorescent tubes were on, but the sun was just beginning to bleed through the high windows. It hit the linoleum in this long, thin stripe, like someone had laid a ribbon of gold across the floor. I stopped. For a second, I thought I could hear the echo of scrubbed shoes, the hush before a call. Then I remembered: that silence is mine now. Still, I stood there. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and something else—maybe just memory. I didn’t move until the light shifted, and then I let it go.