October 2012

Steve Lewis

Evenings in the Sloan-Kettering ICU were starkly lit–nowhere to hide from the glare, bloodshot eyes trained on blinking lights, buzzing machines, masked men and women passing soundlessly through sliding glass doors, and little but hours and hours of bright, eerie luminosity ahead.

By contrast, the days then were dark. No comfort to be found in the sunrise or in that old salve about everything looking better in the morning. My wife and kids and I sat on the edge of uncomfortable couches in dimly lit waiting rooms where the waiting was always either too long or never long enough; we stood shoulder to shoulder in airless elevators with strangers sharing the same muted despair; we sat huddled in the cafeteria and did not eat.

When I was alone I paced the circular halls of that cancer-riddled sixteen-story building, cloaked in green gowns and latex gloves. My beard was always wet with acidic breath behind the paper mask. I slathered my hands in Purell every time I made a move, because it seemed as if germs were the only thing left in my life I could control. Because practically everything I’d once assumed to be true was now a