Her hair, a chestnut brown in shards of rogue sunlight, is the only color in the graywashed room.

But it’s her eyes that draw me in, their fierce sorrow. A tangible despondency within them. Never have I seen such a young girl with such a crestfallen expression. She’s already given up. And somehow I understand her without her having to mutter a single word.

She’s the only other patient in the waiting room, though it seems she hasn’t even noticed me as she keeps her attention on the small wooden object in her hand. I can’t make it out from this distance, though I assume it to be a toy of some sort. 

The longer I look at her the more I feel a sense of familiarity towards the girl, though I’m positive I’ve never seen her before in my life. It’s more like I recognize the sharpness of her features, the weight of her stare. Perhaps she’s related to someone I know.

My earlier suspicions prove correct when the child twists her hand about a clockwork motor on the object’s exterior. She sets the wind-up toy on the small coffee table before her. It doesn’t move.

But she expected this. I can tell from the way she stares at it, not out of hope or expectation, but of some rotten acceptance.

“Nadia?”

The girl does not flinch at the mention of her name, though the nurse who just entered the room looks at her expectedly. She smiles like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Silently and stone-faced, the child rises from her seat, abandoning the broken toy to follow the wolf with gray scrubs. My pulse quickens suddenly and I’m overcome with a strange desire to run and grab hold of the girl’s arm, anything to keep her from leaving.

But I don’t. I just watch as she goes, swallowed up by the flourescents. And then I am alone.

I take advantage of the sudden solitude and step closer to the table until I am right in front of it. The wooden toy lies on its side: a small train caboose painted in a yellow so old it looks more like a pale brown. A smiling monkey waves a hat out the window, smiling up at the white ceilings. I take the winder between my fingers and twist until the spring coils with a click. And-

Nothing. It’s broken.

And still I try again, twist again, wait for it to move. It doesn’t. It only sits there, paint chipped and wood cracked, smiling despite its poor condition. Like it’s mocking me. I want to smash it to pieces, watch its smile split down the middle, burn it until there’s nothing but ash. 

But I sit back down in the girl’s seat and watch it. As though, at any second, it will decide to move again.

***