Chapter 61

Stars twinkled overhead, a memory of a great spiral he couldn’t see. The cats purred like an army on the march. His jeans and sweater were both too stiff and too soft for comfort. Mostly, Zeke missed the ever-present angel always in sight.

Tears went unnoticed until Night rubbed them away with his next head butt to Zeke’s face.15

Work was the same, no matter what time it was or where he was, for that matter. Doctors bustled around with an air of importance while the nurses sprinted between the hard tasks of actual patient care and paperwork. Zeke loved it, even if he worked too hard. Harder nowadays.

No amount of piss-your-pants terror while holding a person together with his bare hands or the dull humdrum of endless typing seemed to help at all. At least Jim was up to his usual grouchiness.

“The patient in 109 is sucking face with his girlfriend,” Jim grumbled. One of his standard complaints, then. “They need to knock it off.”