I didn't like this hospital. Despite the recent upgrades I was not confident in its capabilities. The steep structure and gleaming steel showed the expensive investment recently made by the government. Yet the nurses and doctors were the same. Old mindsets had remained, maintaining the system that created its negative reputation.
I stood over his frail form, feeling helpless. Despite the obvious, a false sense of hope kept me believing that things would be okay. It wavered when I saw drops of blood on the floor. Blood that belonged to someone else and had not been cleaned. Instinctively I tried to distance myself from the biological hazards splattered across the room.
I wanted to turn around and shut the door but the nurses were bustling in and out. We came to comfort my uncle. To bring some respite and peace to the final leg of his life's journey. The tension in the atmosphere counteracted our efforts and made us feel nervous.
A deep wail came out from the lobby. A guttural, piercing cry that raised the hairs on my arm. Instead of dissipating it was amplified by more cries of anguish. Someone's loved one had died. I wanted to stop my uncle from hearing the entrance call that had announced the death. His eyes widen and pupils dilated in fear. In his somewhat delirious state he heard. I could see he wanted to flee. We all did.
The cold we felt increased, not from the frigid temperature but from the palpable presence of something that had come to take someone away. I wondered if it was an Angel of death. Or if it was an unknown, soundless, sonic boom that disembodied a man's soul from his body. Someone had left the cohort of humanity.
I was afraid.
The cries down the hall were abnormal and strange. The worst one was deep, slow, and soft. You could tell it was the sorrowful weeping of a grown man. It was a stuttering type from someone that wasn't familiar with crying, as if he were out of practice. It filled us with fear.
We were waiting for the doctor but the cries made me wonder what we were really waiting for. It felt more like we were waiting for our number to be called up to meet death.
My uncle felt it worst. He was a harden man more accustom to the brutality of life. Yet his eyes filled with a terror that shook me to my core.
He died the next night.
