The email arrived without fanfare. Subject line: Your Lab Results Are Ready. Daniel clicked it in the kitchen, one hand still damp from rinsing dishes. He expected numbers in green ranges, cholesterol bragging rights, maybe a note about vitamin D. Instead, his eyes caught on a single flagged sentence.
It said he was infertile. The language was clinical, careful: “consistent with azoospermia, likely congenital.” Daniel reread it, certain he’d misinterpreted. A mistake in the upload, surely. Yet the words blurred into permanence. A buzzing filled his ears, and the walls of his kitchen seemed to close in.