Hospital

The smell of disinfectant and plastics filled the air of the hospital room as George entered. It was his first hospital visit in a long while. There in the metallic and uninviting bed, with its only source of comfort appearing to be a medium-sized cloth, lay his wife Sasha. Sasha was sleeping peacefully, at least she looked like she was, and George sat on the plastic chair situated at a wall near her bed.

After positioning himself on the small chair, George then began to stare at his wife with a sense of love and devotion. He notice everything: the nerves peering through her pale skin, her silent breathing, her colorless nails, one even being cracked, and the small ring finger missing a ring. Eventually George could not continue and merely turned away, trying to steer his mind away from his wife's condition on the bed and towards other things. He noticed the painting hanging on the front wall of the room, he even thought he could smell the oil,  depicting a vivid image of a cow in a field. After chuckling at the inane nature of a picture of a cow hanging in a hospital room, George turned his head right. there he saw a bright T.V blaring on and on with an untouched food tray laying in front of it.

The commercial was evidently about food sales, which only served to remind George of the mouths he had to feed back home. The smiling and jubilant characters on the commercial struck George as apathetic. For he knew full well what a real smile was. His wife's smile. Sasha's smile. Something he hadn't seen in months through no fault but his own. He said to himself "I'll see her after the operation, I'll see her after I'm sure she's going to be okay" but he knew full well how much it rang hollow. He just couldn't bare to see her as she was. In pain. Dying.

He wondered if he had any right to be there, any right to be her husband after everything that had happened. Sure he took care of the kids, but was he really there for them? Not like Sasha would've been, of that he's acutely aware. Wandering around the room he eventually came to a window, where his eyes became blinded by the rays being reflected from the descending sun. He remembered that he and Sasha had seen this same exact view on their first date. And then he knew, full well, what he was going to say when she woke up. Just three little, powerful, and all-encompassing words. At that exact thought, he heard a distinct change in her breathing and turned around, to see his wife's eyes open and her deep-blue eyes revealed.