When the doctor stooped to retrieve his coat from the floor, he paused at the base of his descent, looked at the patient, and said, "Good night."

The phrase good night, if ones takes it perhaps too literally (and the reader is invited to remove her attention from this text and take a long moment to do so), is one of profound if Elizabethan tenderness. By the end of his long day, the patient was inclined to see this quaint poetry, and to consider that between himself and the doctor, was a dense void, insurmountable by any degree of sincerity, the far side of which nonetheless sustained all the moments of a true person.

He lay there in his comfortable, unfamiliar bed, holding book under the light of a cozy lamp. He could not read more than a sentence or two before his thoughts drifted, while his eyes continued to move across the text in a disconnected and meaningless way. He felt as though several cool worms were exploring the inside of his body. But he remembered the doctor's goodbye, and when he thought back over his day he felt a deep swell of gratitude and compassion, which quieted the worms somewhat. Leaving on the light, he turned over suddenly, pulling the thick comforter tight around him. His legs felt heavy, and the physical strain of being human for a day began to ease out of his back and shoulders. The pillow made an agreeably crunchy sound as he moved, and he burrowed his head into it and let out a relaxed sigh.

Ending, first draft
C.f. 11.2.07 4:22 PM