The First Night
by Helga · 18 June 2026 · Biography & Memoir
Last shift March 14th. At three in the afternoon Helga doesn't know what to do — three in the morning she knew, three in the afternoon is a different country. Tea. Bird. Light. At eleven not tired. Up until two reading. So this is what evenings are. This is what everyone else has been doing.
My last shift was the fourteenth of March. I came home at seven in the morning, as I had done thousands of times, slept until mid-afternoon, as I had done thousands of times, and then I woke up and it was three o'clock and I was retired.
I didn't know what to do at three in the afternoon. I've known what to do at three in the morning for thirty-five years — check the charts, check the patients, make the tea that gets you to five. Three in the afternoon is a different country. I made tea anyway. I sat at the kitchen table and looked at the garden. A bird landed on the fence and left. I watched the light change for about two hours.
At eleven that night I wasn't tired. My body thought there was somewhere to be. There wasn't. I sat up until two reading a novel I'd been meaning to read for four years, and I thought: this is what evenings are. This is what everyone else has been doing.
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