Oriela Pt. 2

by She's Alive

***

“May I help you?” a voice said from behind me.

“Yes,” I said to the nurse in the blue scrubs, “I’m looking for my mother, Janna Allen. She was in this room yesterday, I think.” Her eyebrow raised in confusion and her mouth opened to say something. I quickly interrupted her, correcting my mistake: “Janna Russell, I mean. I always forget she’s married.”

“Yes, well. . . I’m sorry but. . . you’re mother, well. . . she passed yesterday.”

“Oh,” I said, “thank you.”

I quickly walked out of critical care and into the elevator lobby. I feel into a chair adjacent to the vending machines and momentarily thought about purchasing a Snickers bar. Before I could check to see if I had enough money to actually buy the snack, the nurse came gliding into the lobby. She was young–I gaged her age as being somewhere between 22 and 25–but she was kind. She stood in front of me and asked if there was anyone I would like for her to call. I declined the offer, got to my feet, and anxiously awaited the elevator’s arrival. She waiting with me in silence, and when the elevator came, I rushed inside it, happy to be separated from unwanted sympathy.

The weather that day called only for a leather jacket and a light scarf. I had left my scarf at hime along with the proper reaction to the present situation. I walked out of the hospital expecting the death-in-a-family chill to cause my teeth to chatter, yet the sun still beamed happily. I had also expected it to start raining, as is nature’s custom when the Grim Reaper has hacked away at someone.

Standing there with my phone in my hand, I was aware that calls would have to be made sooner or later. The news would have to be spread. Sooner seemed too abrupt while later seemed a little insensitive. I still opted for later and chose to watch people enter and exit the sullied revolving doors. There were many handprints on the glass. Some larger than others; some more defined and others less visible. I wondered if my hand had left a prominent print. Or would it fade under the influence of the others? If that were to be the case, how would people know that I had been there. She was there and I was visiting her; there was no doubt that my hand had touched that glass numerous times. Those doors had revolved around my thought enough to dizzy me to the matter in front of me. Perhaps I had gotten stuck within them against my own will. or perhaps I was just making some more excuses.

Some people would enter the hospital confident–happy, even-while others would enter with doom weighing down their shoulders,  their eyes glued on the floor. The hospital has that kind of power. Producing heaven and hell within its walls on a daily basis If I can I steer clear from them, their shadows too. Rare energy emits from them–a combination of defeat and hope. In a cemetery there is only defeat and in a church there is hope. Yet hospitals have managed to fuse these two and create an uneasy feeling which looms within every square inch of the establishment. It sets my heart racing and makes my skin itch. They’re buildings which never receive much praise from me.

I had entered that building confident, yet left confused about my inability to produce a tear.

***