The quiet between alarms is a whole geography

I keep returning to the four-second gap after the last pump stops beeping and before the next one starts. In that space the ward holds its breath, the fluorescent hum drops a half-tone, and I can hear the drip stand ticking like a clock with nowhere to be. Then the noise floods back and I'm just a nurse again, but I swear that silence has a shape, a weight to it, like a room that exists only while you're not paying attention to it.