Rain poured nonstop from the sky. It wasn’t a hard, heavy rain nor was it a light, soft rain. Rather the quality that described it best was persistent. Ceaseless, it beat against everything slowly eroding sound, soil and sanity. Neither wind nor thunder broke up the monotonous tapping.

Inside St. Maurice’s Hospital, a ball bounced from wall to floor to hand. Moments later the cycle repeated offering a counterpoint to the endless onslaught of rain. Each time the rhythm threatened to become one with the deluge, the hand would snatch the ball out of the air and hold it. Slowly, the fingers would rotate it back and forth, rolling it around until every surface had been examined under the sterile light of the room. Free of scuff marks as well as the binding sound of the rain, the cycle would begin again.

A smart rap at the door, as asynchronous to the ball as the ball was to the rain, disrupted the hand in the middle of a throw and the orange sphere bounced three times and rolled into a corner, far out of reach.