Early morning was the most quiet part of the day on this hospital floor. No visitors, no clanging of food trays or mop carts. Sedatives fed through IVs still held the gravely ill in their grasp. An occasional squeak of white rubber-soled shoes and the low drug-mellowed moan of a nightmare.

A mustachioed man quietly stood reading, a nurse clicked on alphabet keys at a screen. The sun stretched its rays through a window at the end of the hall.

One by one from the rooms, voices called out names of no one that anyone knew.