The Curtain I Would Not Lift

I worked night shifts on a hospital ward as a junior healthcare assistant, still learning how to carry other people's endings without letting them crush me. One night an elderly man across from my station kept calling out softly for someone named May. Visiting hours were long over. His breathing was already wrong. I checked his chart, adjusted a drip, told myself the nurse would be in soon. I didn't pull the curtain back. I didn't sit with him. I didn't hold his hand. By the time the nurse came, May was still a name in the air and he was already gone. I finished my shift in silence, then went home and slept like someone who hadn't earned it.