“Human beings are so fragile.” He gazes at the infants in the next room and reaches out a finger to touch the glass in front of us. He scratches at the glass. With a sigh he pulls his hand away and puts it in his pocket.

I swear there is a tiny speck of mold on the window where his finger was. I try to suppress the cough that pounds against my chest. It takes a while for it to stop, but once it does there’s a familiar ache that lingers in my muscles, but it’s distant.

The man smiles. “Like take you for example. Here you are, talking to me while your body clings to life somewhere in this building. What would it really take for your body to shut down without you there to support it? A bacterial infection?”

I can feel my skin grow warm. I’m vaguely aware of sweat beads popping up on my body.

“How long would it take one little germ to multiply and spread throughout your body? How long would it take for it to infect your cells and organisms to the point that they don’t work right?”

He takes a step towards me. I step back. He leans towards me. I take another step back but am stopped by a wall. The man’s face becomes weirdly distorted, like I’m looking at him through a peephole. It suddenly becomes difficult to breathe, like when you try to suck in a breath when you have to cough.

He peers at me, squinting his eyes and tilts head from side to side. “Most likely not very long, I imagine.”

A train whistle sounds in the distance. I can feel the panic beginning to set in. I feel rushed. Without a second thought, I step out from the wall behind me and run as fast as I can through the hospital’s halls. I’m not quite sure where I’m going or what I’ll do when I get there. I just feel like I don’t have a lot of time to do it.