Painfully noting every creek of my dress shoes on the black and white checkered tile, I made my way down the hallway. The curtain beckoned me forward, enticing and warning me at the same time. People don’t put up curtains willy-nilly, you know, so it had to be blocking something, hiding something.

At the threshold of the fabric barrier I took a steadying breath. The smells of dust, cardboard, instant coffee, and something like thrift store air filled my nostrils. My body swayed on suddenly aching feet. The whoosh of air filled my ears. As I suppressed a brackish eruption from the back of my throat, I had to think, “So that’s what fear tastes like.”

I cleared my throat, half to rid the acrid taste and half to announce my presence. After no response, I repeated the noise, more pronounced this time. Before I could make it three attempts a soft wheeze, low and slow, came from the other side of the curtain. By rights it was the most pathetic sound I’d heard in years, but it still made me shudder and cringe.