The Fall of Man

Part II chapter 15

Chapter 15

The couple meet for breakfast every morning in the first floor canteen. From there, Noah continues to take his long walks during daylight hours, each day pushing a little further at the extremities of city that remain unexplored. Most evenings they take advantage together of the many other facilities on offer within the building.

After an invigorating day outside, Noah has arranged to rendezvous with Gwen beside the fourth floor swimming pool. He strides quickly across the cool ceramic tile floor, his feet making little slapping sounds on the damp, dimpled surface. Rover clatters noisily behind.  Eventually, he finds her - sprawled across a wooden sun-lounger. The deckchair is one of a cluster that are scattered in the lea of a tall, airy bay window beside the shimmering water. Behind her sunglasses, Noah can tell that Gwen is dozing by the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest beneath the white towelling robe.

He perches on the lounger next to hers, and watches while she sleeps. A solitary swimmer moves slowly through the water alongside, and the ripples caused by his bobbing body cast a shimmering web over her pale skin where it emerges from the folds of her robe. Her thin limbs look fragile, weightless, with hollow bird-bones at their core. The legs lean with characteristic angular asymmetry against one another – their poise is awkward and broken. He wonders how long she would survive outside the protective confines of the hospital.

That evening, Noah escorts the red-haired girl back to her room. She pauses at her doorway, dabbing with a hand towel at her still-wet hair.

“Are you coming in?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t have to. I’m pretty tired.”

“Are you going to sleep?”

“I’m tired, Noah. Why don’t you go for a walk – stretch your legs. Come round afterwards. I’ll still be up.”

“OK.”

Gwen tires easily, while Noah’s stamina continues to grow daily. In between the novelty of playing boyfriend, he is left to entertain himself. The hospital perimeter is locked up at night, so his nocturnal explorations are limited to the boundaries of the medical complex. Many of the lounges, cafes and bars located within his building remain open throughout the night, but the stuffy tempered air, soft lighting and ergonomic chairs leave him feeling claustrophobic and restless. Instead, he finds himself walking mile after mile of vinyl flooring alone, pacing along the internalised, intestinal corridors that wind warren-like throughout the hospital buildings.

He uses this time to think, to digest each day’s exploration and to pick apart the development of his ‘relationship’ with Gwen, now that their first encounter has blossomed into a repetitive cycle of eating and sleeping together. Does he even like her? It’s very difficult to tell; she likes him and he is comfortable with her. That counts for a lot when you have nothing and no-one else.

He turns a corner onto yet another dark corridor, and instantaneously his path is lit from above. A soft and fluctuating light is exuded by the pastel ceiling; clouds scud vaguely across its fine pores. Just one panel flickers faintly, dispelling the illusion of sky overhead. There must be at least thirty doors decked out in a variety of colours along either side of the moss-coloured walkway. Bottled within this artificial environment, it could be any time of day or night outside. Noah realises with surprise that he has grown accustomed to the artificial nature of this place. Maybe it is because he was a child when the accident happened. Or maybe he was asleep for so long that he forgot what his world used to be made of. But this feels like home now…

After several months of exploration, Noah is confident that he knows the buildings inside out. He also begins to recognise many of the other nocturnal wanderers. Some of the faces belong to other patients. Whether they appear tired, annoyed, intoxicated or frustrated, they all register him in passing, in one way or another. But during the darkest part of each night, most of the faces belong to an undercurrent of workers - cleaners, maintenance staff and janitors – whose responsibility it is to keep the medical complex running. These faces are blank. Their uniforms are … uniform. The eye embroidered on the left shoulder of each grey shirt looks on, but they don’t see him – or at least they don’t acknowledge his presence. They are part of the furniture, as much as the lifts and the turnstiles. They belong to a different world, a world in which he does not play a part.