It was night at the hospital, and Amara, the nurse, was walking through the quiet halls. In one room, Mr. Costa, an old fisherman, was awake. "I can't sleep," he said. "Tomorrow they will operate on me, and I'm afraid."
Amara did not give him a pill. She pulled up a chair and said, "Tell me about the sea." So he told her about the dawn, the smell of salt and nets, and his little boat, Maria. Amara turned down the light. She described the sound of the waves while she checked his pulse.
After a while, he fell asleep in the middle of a sentence. At seven o'clock the day nurses arrived. Amara was very tired. On Mr. Costa's tray she found a note: "Thank you for the sea."