A reminder I wouldn’ta had, had A not added those routes.

Autonomous bae picked me up. Drove.

Her whip a shitshow full of food wrappers, empty juice bottles, coffee cups. From all the frantic mishes out to her hospital HQs, for her nightly nightshifts.

Grinding nonstop racking up hours.

Going full nocturnal like I’d been, but for a tangible purpose. Doing a thing that actually affected others.

Ambulance-whippin like goddamn Hemingway through the war zone of the nighttime Philly EMT beat.

When we pulled up, Ryden’s dad said Sean! Been a minute.

It had.

I apologized, although he ignored this. This wasn’t about me.

Ryden’s ex-girl was there. Or, the girl he used to be with, before his more recent, BK boo, and whom he’d started seeing again, once he’d already started seeing his more recent BK boo.

Holding it down six months after he’d gone under, visiting him daily to read and talk to and play music for.

We were in a common room adjacent to Ryden’s. Long dining-type table with snacks folks had brought on it, down the middle. Four individual puffy chairs, in a circle, in the corner. Row of windows overlooking the parking lot of the medical complex this facility was part of. Sky clouded concrete.

This facility resembled the hospital floor I’d been posted on, but homier. For longer-term patients. To move to once their hospital tenures expired.

We unbundled. Laid our jackets on two of the four corner chairs, as directed by Ryden’s mom.

Ryden’s mom, Ryden’s partner, and autonomous bae sat. Ryden’s dad talking fast, a lil manic, pacing. I crouched, then stood. Asked Ryden’s dad how he was. Off to the side, once the ladies got settled.

He brought up all Ryden had told him about me before he’d gone under. Before Ryden’s dad and I first met. How Ryden had sent him the pic he took of me that day we nabbed the couches, once we’d finally jimmied em into my box’s box. How Ryden’s dad, upon first seeing it, coulda sworn I wasn’t me but Ryden.

Ryden was hanging in there, Ryden’s dad said. Sleeping at the moment. There’d been a complication with his catheter, earlier that day, that he was still a little shook from. But we could see him in a minute.

He said that the most important thing was to talk to him about recent memories. The early, childhood memories had set. They were there, would still get activated when jostled. But they appealed to an older, more settled mnemonic self. It was his most recent memories, from right before the coma, that hadn’t set yet and had the best chance of jostling things awake again.