Review Summary: And now you're just a ghost
The last two nights, I've visited a hospital chapel. That statement might surprise a lot of the people I know - I'm not a religious person, I never have been, and I really don't plan to be. I've only stepped into a few select places of worship in specific times in my life, but for some reason, visiting the chapel has just seemed like a good idea at this point in my life.
Tonight, just like last night, I find myself entering the small, dark, empty room. As opposed to the rest of the hospital, the room is warm, shielded from the raging air conditioning vents of the long, open hallways; but I notice that there's almost an oppressive feeling to the room as I walk further in. The floor below my feet has changed into thin carpeting, the ceiling above has dropped significantly, so much that I could jump and easily touch it, if I wanted to. Passing by the light switches, the room remains dark, as if I were hiding in secrecy from somebody – it's not that I don't want to be found, it's just that it doesn't seem appropriate to turn the lights on. I won't be staying long anyways.
I look around as the light from the hallway seeps into the door-less hospital chapel. A few choice, colorful square flags line the walls – but scouring the four corners of the room – I see no crucifix, no supposed bloody martyr looking at me below in his small chapel, but only words of peace, love, and happiness line these walls, along with a few, carefully arranged chairs, and a lectern holding a heavy, large print bible. Deafening silence runs through the room as I take the final remaining steps to fully emerge myself in the relative darkness of the room. The hallway outside remain completely silent, the light from those cold passageways fully seeping in through the door-less frame, as I approach the open bible that easily bears the most value of anything in the room.
The light from behind me makes it so the text appears illuminated before me. The page the book is open to remains the same as the night before – as it has more than likely remained untouched since I lay my hands on it only a short time ago. The passage reads:
“There is no searching of His understanding. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."
I stop reading. Many have turned to a holy figure reigning above them – guiding them through troubled times, providing comfort, hope, inspiration. Countless have died over similar words to these – fought to their death to justify their interpretation of the same words, while the words they read remain the same. Maybe that makes my life irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. People work their whole lives to be remembered, only to be forgotten shortly after, so what's really the point of struggling over everyday decisions? After all, everything, at least, superficially, is temporary, right? Maybe my problems aren't anything and all the pop music I've listened to, and all of the teen romance flicks have just made me over-dramatic and paranoid. Or maybe this situation is worse than I thought. Maybe, even though just a few months ago I wanted nothing more than to bask in the glory of the summer, it has made me chew and rip my nails, pull my hair out, crack all my knuckles compulsively without even fully realizing it, but more significantly, it has made me question everything I ever thought about what being an adult is like, both coping with internal and external issues, and dealing/interacting with other "functioning" humans in this crazy world. Isn't it funny how one loose cog in the chain can derail an entire process? Maybe one or two of my oversights will eventually lead...well...maybe not every story has a happy ending, and maybe I should be prepared for the worst. After all, no one's life is a walk in the park – maybe this will just be the burden that I have to live with the rest of my life, and no one has told me that I should in any way claim any of the guilt has accompanied this entire year long ordeal.
I regain control of my mind for only a split second, suddenly plunging back into these thoughts briefly – before rightly putting these antics in my mind to a
full.
sudden.
stop.
…
I once again find myself, alone, in the small, compressed, hospital chapel, staring into the large book in front of me with glazed eyes. I turn around towards the hallway and quietly walk out. Staring downward, I exit through the two sets of sliding automatic doors of the hospital and walk into the deep summer night.
…
The music from the car stereo rings into the night.
And now you’re just a ghost
When I look back never would have known that
You could be so cold
Like a stranger vanish like a vapor
There's just an echo where your heart used to be
Now I see it clearly
And there's just a pillow where your head used to sleep
My vision's 20/20
I see through you now
…
There should be no stops along the way, but I make one anyways soon after departing – the convenience store - to buy the pack of cigarettes that I have been craving for weeks now. I walk into the store with only cash in my pocket, no wallet, no keys, no phone, not even any identification, just the means to pay and nothing else. I look inside at the male cashier roughly my age leaning over the counter, holding his phone in his hands. This man has no idea who I am, and he probably never will.
As we make the transaction, I make small talk with the bored cashier, partly because I worked many years behind a register, and I like trying to brighten someone's day. I ask him about what it's like to work overnights there. He tells me that working the overnight shift is relatively quiet, and that working the shift is like “working for free money.” Instead of asking the man something deep about the job – how perhaps the aching loneliness of an empty store could leave one completely alone with their thoughts – time that could prove to be therapeutic, while a lack of sleep or severe change in sleep patterns could simultaneously put one at some sort of risk to develop something even more unstable inside them, of course. I ask him if he gets free soda, partly because of my seemingly overwhelming, yet completely unnecessary need to not let the soft buzzing of the registers be the most prominent sound surrounding us at this particular moment. I also find myself talking to this man out of general curiosity about the job, the sort of people he meets, the sort of things he has had the pleasure (or displeasure) of seeing, but he only responds with “Nah man, nothing's free here,” before we end the small talk and I walk out of the store.
…
The stereo blasts once again, carelessly and unrelentingly all the way home.
…
I arrive in the apartment, climb the narrow set of stairs to the roof that overlooks the city, and immediately light up a cigarette. I watch it closely as the wind slowly burns it away, as the backdrop of the city behind it flickers dimly in the night.