Archie was covered with rubber heating blankets that looked like extra big bathtub mats. The feeling in his hands and feet had returned. His body was stiff, but his head had cleared.

He was in his own room in the Emanuel ER. The boy had been worse off than he was. They’d taken him somewhere to pump warm blood into him or something. There was no clock in his room, a clever way to keep patients in the dark about how long they’d been kept waiting. But Archie was the last person on earth with a watch. Assuming that, after a prolonged dip in the Willamette, the watch still worked, it was nine o’clock. He’d been in the ER for over an hour.

They had already announced their intention to keep him overnight. Every so often someone came in and checked his vitals and the temperature of his blankets. Once they got a look at his medical records they started giving him concerned looks. Gretchen had carved out his spleen. His liver was bad from pills. He’d seen the nurse’s eyes widen when she’d opened up the blanket and seen his scars. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

He was alone. More alone than usual. He still had Debbie listed as his emergency contact, but he’d told the hospital not to call. She’d want to come, and it was dangerous on the roads. He would have called Henry if he could have. Henry would have come and berated him for jumping into the river without a plan. Then he would have put his cowboy boots up on Archie’s bed and turned on a cooking show.

The door to Archie’s room was open, so he passed the time listening to the sounds of the hospital. A woman sobbed softly in the room next to him. A frail white-haired man who’d arrived holding a bloody shirt to his head was getting stitches. Orderlies and nurses cracked wise at the desk.

There’s a rhythm to a hospital. Archie was amazed at how it came back to him. The sound of clogs on linoleum, curtain rings sliding on metal rods, distant TV chatter. Shapes moved by in the hallway at the same pace. It was self-contained—its own ecosystem. There was a labeled compartment for everything; every action was recorded in a chart; life moved at a predictable pace.

Until it didn’t.

Archie could feel the shift. The building’s pulse quickened. The tone of conversation outside his door darkened. The ambient hum of unnecessary movement ceased.

An orderly rushed a crash cart by Archie’s door.