You start to notice things you never had before, like the subtle hand rails along the walls.
The ghosts walking the hallways in yellow patterned gowns.
The way the melancholy cafeteria light makes the tears run out like they're catching a school bus.
The grey and black squares that fall into a listless pattern on the floor.
You wander in circles,
passing painted picture after painted picture,
waiting for the moaning to stop. It echoes in your mind
you turn corner after corner. Always returning.
You watch as cubicles turn cold and still. A dark sheet falls over the building, plastering the words "night shift" on the walls.
The quiet cadence of medical machines buzz.
A void green light sits in the corner
and under your eyelids, sleeping on the pullout, you listen to channel 3 saunter in and out, classical music that's meant to sooth
But instead it numbs.
trying to numb yourself you're hoping the moan dulls to a faint whisper.
Muddles itself under the stiff air that sits on top of you.
Silenced under your exhaustion.
It smells of medication and clean, old bedsheets.
The TV screen shows an infinite universe of stars. The camera continues to advance but finds nothing different.
Floor 8.
Below me lives come into view of the world. Above me people die and I'm stuck in the in between, as usually. Always stuck between living and dying.
