He walked in, unnoticed by those in the waiting room. Their minds were on life and death, sickness and disease; far more important things than strangers milling about. He bled into the background without much effort.

Walking through the double doors, the flood of smells crashed a wave of memories. Each of these wards held his stories of being a doctor. Patients long past still seemed to speak from the walls. The mother who died giving birth, the police officer who had been shot, the poor child who was caught in the house fire. Those memories were still there, although they were slowly graying.

He approached the children’s ward. He had treated his own daughter in this same hospital, many years ago. Sadly with all his experience, with all the help from the nurses, he had been unable to save her. This was a bittersweet moment.

As a doctor, death scared him; as death, he took a strange pleasure in his job.