Gemotions

The rain hammered against the windows of the café, mirroring the storm inside him. He nursed his coffee, the warmth doing little to thaw the icy fear that had gripped him since the phone call. "There's been a mistake," the medical assistant had told him, her voice carefully neutral. "Your records…they've been misfiled."

He watched the steam curling from his cup, lost in thought. His future, once a defined path, was now a maze. He could now only speculate. What would the correct diagnosis have been? What treatment? He felt a strange disconnect from his own body, as though it were a stranger's territory.

He sighed, the sound barely audible above the drumming of the rain. The café was nearly empty, just him and a lone woman reading a book. He felt a profound sense of isolation, adrift in a sea of uncertainty.