The shaking of nothing.

Leaves are dancing in the forest whilst the heart monitor screeches the same sad song of soil which brings a grey eye filled with tears when it looks back toward Erin.

The constant electric hum of the sterile hospital was almost inaudible above the clatter of the crash carts. As he sat contemplating the grooves of the floor the dishevelled man thought of anything else but what was in front of him. He could feel the sweat of his soles in his shoes as he rubbed them absently-mindedly along the cracks in the lino. A crisp white nurse swatched past his eyeline, momentarily distracting him from his reverie. She moved with purpose, filled with the coarse pride of her profession. The waft of air she left behind smelled of sterility; as if she’d scrubbed out the blood and emotion simultaneously.
A tweet of a monitor reminded him of the time they’d spent together. It always crept back in, like a tongue to a sore tooth, no matter how he tried to concentrate him mind. A time when birdsong had lifted the elements toward the heavens and with it came the sound of peace. But he thought what song is here now? What music left to play with sunlight and touch the lofty tree tops? The smell of dank soil and undergrowth returned, with it the memory of the malleable grassland’s surrender to that insufferable hum.
The stench of nothing twisted a squint across the man’s brow. His ash to ash. The waiting endless. There rose a pain in him. An unshakeable need to move. He half raised himself from the sweat soaked plastic before plonking down again. Who was looking? He had nowhere to go and didn’t want to appear foolish.
A heavy sigh. He ran his hand along the crease in his work trousers. She’d ironed them imperfectly. Two lines almost touched on his thigh. Just off parallel they marched down his leg to meet somewhere further along. He leant back. The only support the chair. Panning from left to right he tried to take in the physicality of the situation. He noted emptied antibacterial dispensers, the open mouth of the reception desk where bored nurses scribbled and scratched lives on to paper and he noted chairs. Empty chairs. The stop motion of his memory recalled people coming and going around him in a symphony of activity. Not so now. Where was his crescendo?

He can imagine her face now. Peaceful. In his worst imaginings she is still peaceful. Non-diegetic birds sing above her and above the constant electric hum as he leaves her dancing in the forest whilst the heart monitor screeches.