Mark's wheelchair stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window. The sky was dark and heavy, and it seemed to be windy outside. The leaves of a plant he couldn't name kept swaying, as though the poor little thing might be blown off the building, pot and all, at any moment.
His muddled thoughts gradually came together. Staring at the plant outside, Mark couldn't help wanting to open the window and rescue it.
But the iron bars outside the window made him abandon the idea. There was condensation on the glass. Mark reached out and wiped it away, revealing the reflection of his pale face.
"Steven?"
He asked his own reflection.
But the version of him in the glass didn't answer.
"Steven? Steven?!"
Mark couldn't help rising from his wheelchair. He had a vague sense that he had lost something terribly important.
"Steven?"
Receiving no reply, Mark began to panic. He hurried forward, trying to get closer to his reflection.
Thud!
The pain of smashing his whole face into the floor made Mark cry out.
He noticed that the object he had been clutching had rolled aside when he fell. It was an entirely gray ceramic toy. The two black holes in its oversized bird head seemed to mock his clumsiness, like a pair of black whirlpools swallowing his dignity.
Mark stared at the ceramic toy a short distance away, his face full of bewilderment and confusion.
Mark looked down. The chain connecting his right ankle to the wheelchair was like a lock, imprisoning him while also giving him his answer.
"Are you okay? Let me help!"
A young man's cheerful, energetic voice sounded overhead, sweeping away the gloom in Mark's heart like a spring breeze.
Someone grabbed Mark under the arms and lifted him off the floor like a little