When I got to the hospital Sunday morning, no one else was there with him in the Neuro ICU, just me standing at the foot of his bed. His body laid almost completely motionless while he slept, with tubes coming out of every possible place, connected to monitoring devices nearby. My thoughts ran to a couple days before when I read a few emails he sent me, and responded to his instant messages. Friday afternoon, I got a package he mailed me the day before. All that was lively just days before now looked empty. A battered machine lay before me, a machine that pumped blood and air and electricity through flesh and bone that used to talk to me was now still. The machine was hooked to other machines, cold, beeping, machines.

My hearing suddenly went into tunnel mode, and my urge to faint was only being held back by my inability to breathe.