Waiting at the garden with plum trees. Silence, footsteps, white, automobile horn, a doorknob, lines, lungs wheezing, breathing, and silence again. These are what I see and hear. Lots of things inspecting my mind at the same time like the sparkles appearing and disappearing on the surface of the water. I remember waiting in the garden of plum trees.

​The nurse told me that I was early. “You can see him at three p.m.” The garden where I’m sitting faces a school back yard. I have time until three o clock, which means I can still run away. Yes, I want to run away from this hospital and from the sad glances at the windows. I can’t, somehow. I feel like I’m nailed here. I can’t walk any further. I can’t move my feet outside of the back yard of the hospital. Maybe it’s because I know running away is more courageous than staying. I have the necessary fear in my blood that I need to do it. The escapist knows he is running to change his fate. Who is left, prepares himself to receive the next fist in his face.

           The kids are running after a red ball in the school yard.  Childhood may be the only period of time that is not questionable. They fall down and cry. They think they help the wound heal by kissing and rubbing it with their spit. They get up and begin to run again. Their thin bodies look like paper kites. One of them yells out “be a man! What are you waiting for? Kick it!” Two little girls are walking hand in hand. Their bodies are light, almost not touching the ground as they walk. The boys kick the ball towards me. They don’t say a word for a minute, then start moving impatiently.  “C’mon, old man, kick the ball!” It’s weird that I thought I was invisible. Maybe I want them to think I am just another tree. Luckily, the ball rolls back due to aim of the ground.  They forget about my existence in a few minutes. I get angry with the ant climbing up on  my pants, the tree above me, the chilly wind, the jacket I decided not to wear earlier today, the summer that has ended, the books about fall I haven’t finished reading, and myself  for not finishing the books about fall. 

​ I walk to the front desk. I hope to be invisible like a ghost, something transparent and fluid as water. I bend forward towards the nurse and answer her questions.

​“Yes, I’m his son.” The nurse is pretty, I think. She smiles at the computer screen when I tell her what I think. I repeat after her: “Room ninety six… After 3 pm… Alright.” 

           I go back to the backyard and sit under the same tree. I pick up a plum from the ground and roll it in my hand for a while. We had plum trees in our backyard when I was a child. But the ones in our garden had bigger plums, I think. Maybe my hands holding the plums were smaller back then.  I remember me and my sister walking along in the street to the playground with plums in our pockets, showing what we have in our pockets to other children, eating the plums as they stick to our teeth or passing them into the proud hands of our parents. 

​I remember my sister’s voice on the phone when she told me about it.

        “Yes. Cancer. You’ve better come.”

           I’m not sure how many years have passed by since I left my games at the house with the plum trees. Me and my sister were sent to a boarding school by our father after our mother’s death. Alcohol, smoking, losing the house with plum trees in order to pay a debt; they all brought him to this crossroads. He wanted everyone to be a member of the audience. I don’t know if I ever blamed him. Did I hate him? I don’t know that either. 

          White is not a color. Even the glances have no color in this back yard.

          It’s three pm. I stand up reluctantly. I’m jealous of the people waiting in the backyard and having no role in any crash. I feel older. I take the stairs instead of the elevator to delay the moment. People waiting in the corridor seem like they are used to the disgusting smell coming from the restroom at the end of the hallway. A kid is playing with the radio in his hands. My footsteps resound between the walls, trying to hide from an end, happy or sad, but an end for sure. My footsteps are covering the silence of people waiting. Is it the first door on the left?  No, it isn’t. The door number ninety eight, ninety seven… Oh, here it is! Shall I knock on the door? My hand hangs in the air between the door and my chin. Maybe it’s better that I‘m out of here. That’s what I really want. Damn hospital, this cold gray door!  Damn tree in the garden, the sleepless nights at the boarding school, damn the kid drawing pictures on the window glass. I find myself at the other side of the door somehow. Did I knock? Did someone say “come in”? I don’t even remember touching the doorknob. The nurse in the room opens the curtains. A bed, a nightstand, and faded flowers in a vase on the nightstand. A screen next to the bed, buttons, cables. My eyes reach for a thin and pale arm with green blood veins. Is this man my father, lying on the white sheets? The nurse gazes at my face. Somebody says “I’m his son,”  I feel like I’m hearing my voice for the first time. His chest goes up and down slowly. His growling breath fills the room. His unconscious eyes move down from the ceiling. The lines on his face tell the history of a crash. 

​I don’t know how long we’ve stayed like that. I hear car horns outside. The lines on the screen go down. A plum passes from one hand to another. He holds it tight. Silence again.

         A radio sizzles from the hallway. News flash. A tree and man didn’t survive the crash, but fall had no injury at all.