We walked down the hospital's hallway, mute, quietly.
Two left turns later, we arrived at the ICU door.
Frosted glass and brushed steel, too clean, too quiet, at the top was labelled the ICU, then more elaborately spelled out and endorsed in a steel panel, "Intensive Care Unit".
I peered through the glass, and I could see him on the high, raised bed. Flat, blue, straight, but for his head on the pillows, he was almost invisible with all those matching blue sheets tucking him inside, like a cocooned larva.
Nasogastric tubes went through his nostrils, and several catheters were attached to his arms.
The crown of them all was the low-flow oxygen mask.
A nurse, dwarf with long straight hair and eyes so big and bulgy, I was afraid they'd fall out of her sockets, roll on the floor and stare at me blinking, stood by the door, hands hovering just inches from the threshold, knowing what waited beyond might change everything.
She was kind and polite though, greeting my mom respectfully and leading us inside.
There on the hard and straight bed, which strung up a phantasmagoria of the surface of stacked high davenports, several metres above the ground in my mind, and was about three-quarters of my five feet four height, lay Uncle Horace.
I stared at him, horrified. His condition had gotten worse, I felt the edge of my lips quiver from the sight.
I was driven back to three weeks earlier, when he was at our home, strong, robust, bubbling with life, and loads of countless candy and wrapped Wilbury Chocolate bars, just for Tom.
He was awake and when he tried to turn to our direction, his skin clung to the bed linens, like fragile paper caught in old glue. Every movement risked pulling the delicate surface away, exposing raw patches beneath.
The fabric seemed almost a part of the suffering itself, binding him in place, a quiet reminder of the slow, relentless toll the disease was taking.
I felt my heart split, for fear his flesh might rip off his bones.
More than half of his body was concealed beneath the light blanket, and all I could see was a portrait, above the blanket, the bed, and white pillow cases had turned a dirty brown from pus and blood.
The sores on his shoulders, which I recognized from the previous week, had failed to heal and had only eaten deeper. I remembered he used to have silky long blonde hair, just like my father, his brother.
Poor Uncle Horace, this time, he had his hair shaved off, all that lushness and look gone, exposing a landscape of bold, tender, pale skin from which patterns of venous flow were visible, greenish, pumping with blood.
I sighed in pity and a fear that made my bones shaky. The thought of losing him was incredulous.
"What did the doctors say?" my mother said, inching her chair towards him. I could see apprehension in her eyes, as she spoke.
Uncle Horace let out a weak cough that shook almost every limb in his body.
"They still don't know" he muffled. Then he paused, I could see him struggle for the strength to finish, breathing rapidly in short quick gasps to catch up.
"My diagnosis seems f-f-fine, but... I'm dying," he managed to muster.
"Those doctors! I don't think they know what they're doing! How can nothing be wrong with you? Silly! It's obvious you're sick" mother fumed. The nurse said nothing.
I understood her; he was her brother-in-law and the most caring one, too. The one visiting with gifts for the kids, the one calling to ask about them.
I said nothing, I didn't think anything I ever said could've helped, and even if I did say something, I wanted my words to be the healing, the miracle, but it was a fantasy.
This was reality, a place where "get well soon" wasn't a cure and "take heart" couldn't bring back the dead. It was irreversible.
I recoiled in thought about his life. Uncle Horace's sickness came like a bombshell to us all that Wednesday morning.
My mother had broken the news at breakfast. It all started as a mild night fever and had escalated to a bedridden condition in just three weeks! Unbelievable! But for the previous visits and now, the doctors saw nothing, his diagnosis was alright, nothing seemed rickety. It was witchcraft! But his condition deteriorated hourly, losing 60 pounds in just two weeks, and he had assumed a skeleton figure.
The grooves of his collar bones were visible. The pit at the root of his neck, bounded by his clavicle was enough to hold much water.
I could hear his heartbeat through his chest. Feeble skin pouncing up frequently from the force like the jaw of a croaking frog.
Wounds appeared on his skin, uncalled for, suddenly. Uninvited.
So, the doctors treated him with available medication for diseases with similar symptoms but he didn't seem to improve.
Another nurse walked in, it was time to feed him. The dwarf helped her with the cart.
"Has your wife come to see you?" mother asked, her voice sounded like she would cry.
"Yes," he whizzed, blinking hard and opening his eyes wide.
"She was here shortly before..." The cough wouldn't let him finish; it struck his throat again. This time he was too weak and didn't continue.
"Rest, Horace, rest, you'll be well soon," said Amy.
She wanted to grab his skinny hands and pat them, to console and give him hope but she feared contracting the disease.
The two nurses arranged and helped him sit up. Seeing him with gloves, Amy decided she'd rather not be involved with contact too.
They set him up and leaned his head gently against the accommodating walls.
Then, they proceeded to the pipes in his nose. They poured little water into them carefully; the water was so crystal clear, it sparkled in the glass. The other nurse was in charge, while the dwarf helped her organize.