moxie

You have to turn.

That is the message of the myth: you must. There is no version where Eurydice steps back out into the flowers and the sunlight.

You, however, will. You turn in your badge after your last shift, and they tell you to take everything out of your locker. There is nothing to take other than the overshirt you shrug onto your shoulders. No photos to untape; who would you deign to hang here?

The sky is still bright when you leave at this time of year, so you cannot hide. Once you are out from under the awning of the ambulance bay, you are free. 

Behind you there are footsteps, uneven, following you to the surface. You would know them anywhere.

Don't look back. Don't do it. Don't—

You turn.

You see him, yes. Of course you do. Eyes squinted, unused to the light, green. No, brown. Both? Too far away to tell, so you suppose you'll never know. Leaning on his good leg already, minutes into his shift.

You see the rest of it too. Sliding doors, white walls within, those depths that held you that you are only now escaping. Someone steps out, looking left, looking right. Do they seek him? Do you?

He has tried to follow you, after all, hand up, reaching for fresh air. 

If you hadn't turned, maybe you wouldn't have known that he belongs there. The darkness is his space: you see it so clearly now. 

He looks different in the sun.

He would come if you asked him to, but you turned, so you know. You know you can't. You shake your head.

'Mohabbat', which in Urdu and Hindi means love! It writes itself.