George Epley

  Columns and Shadows The columns rise like sentinels outside the hospital entrance—tall, cold, and too clean, like the bones of something ancient and uncaring. You step beneath them slowly, each stride heavy with the weight of what-ifs and maybes. The automatic doors hiss open with the sterile indifference of a machine that's seen too many stories pass through—some ending in relief, others in silence. Inside, the air is dry and smells faintly of antiseptic and old coffee. Shadows stretch long across the waiting room floor as the late afternoon sun filters through high windows, casting the chairs and plastic plants into exaggerated shapes—monsters or angels, depending on your mood. You hesitate at the threshold. Maybe it’s the pain in your chest, or maybe it’s something less physical, more like memory. The last time you came here, they said the word “serious” more than once. The doctor’s face was composed, but his eyes flickered—just a moment of truth peeking out from beneath hi...