Soft lines of stray slanting rays traced the silhouette of a figure hunched on the floor, head bowed. In slow deliberate circles, the figure traced rings over smudged black ink, ever familiar pale yellow pressed tight to let silent words bleed onto the soft pad of his thumb.  A plain box lay discarded to his side, abandoned hospital records spilling forth from the lidless black interior, shadows dancing and flickering over the grainy wooden surface. Sharpening, the meaningless blurred squiggles before him came into painfully, clear focus as it would through the lenses of a camera. The flippant words, rushed and delayed were emboldened, emphasised. He set the card down, fingers reluctantly releasing the pressure against the stiff paper as it dropped to the parqueted floor, the painful memory of a smile working its way across his stiff lips. A single line written apart from the rest called attention upon itself.

“I love you.”