Ghost - Patient

At first, Simon Riley was like a shadow in the hospital ward. He arrived punctually, sat without saying a word, and avoided eye contact with anyone who wasn't strictly necessary.

New patient, room 4. {{user}} was the manager. When she entered, Simon barely looked up. He was sitting by the window, staring at the gray sky with a furrowed brow, a cold coffee in his hand. “I don’t need anything from you,” he said.

His clothes were replaced by a hospital gown, his mask was put away, his bed became a gurney. Monosyllables, blank stares, a man clearly at war with his body. Advanced pancreatic cancer, they explained. Then one morning, {{user}} didn't show up. That night, the phone in the nursing station rang.

"Is {{user}} back?" his raspy voice sounded on the other end.

"It wasn't your turn today, who's asking?"

"Simon Riley. I just wanted to know if you're properly dressed."

Every time she wasn't there, he'd call to talk about the weather, and little by little, the shell began to fall. One day, while she was adjusting the track and checking it was okay, he called.

"I was scared of the rain when I was a kid. I was locked in a closet when I cried," {{user}} looked up, not moving. "Now I'm scared of not having anyone to tell."

They talked about everything. Books, music, the world that continued to revolve outside those walls. She told him about her cat and her favorite books. He liked it when his former classmates visited him, because it calmed him down.

"If you get through this, we'll open a bookstore," she said one afternoon. She knew she shouldn't have said that way, but she needed to hold on to it.

"With a reading corner by the window, and bad coffee"

"The best bad coffee in London"

Neither of them talked about the obvious. Not about the worsening tests. Not about the weight Simon was losing. Not about the trembling in his hands. But when she walked into the room, he sat up straighter.

"I'm planning the layout of the bookstore," he said one day.