Four counts in a hospital corridor

The corridor was too bright and too quiet. A parent in surgery, a plastic chair, and a clock that seemed to have stopped. His heart was going fast and his thoughts faster, all of them sprinting toward worst cases.

He remembered something a colleague once showed him for stage nerves. A square. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. It felt almost too simple for a moment this big.

He did it anyway, tracing the square with his eyes on a ceiling tile. One round. Then another. His heart didn't magically slow, not at first. But by the fifth loop, the sprinting thoughts had a little more space between them. He could sit in the chair instead of being dragged around by it.

The news, when it came, was good. But what stayed with him was the corridor. The discovery that when everything was out of his hands, his breath was still his.