Clay's Blog Post

The seemingly never ending hallway was bathed in gray hues. Accentuated by the dismal cacophony of white noise which was never able to annul the beeps and rings; prerequisites to a hospital. Bland grayness enveloped every corner of the building, each tile on the floor fit perfectly into the mosaic of sameness that tugged at every corner and crevice. But unlike a stunning representation of artistic creativity and vibrant colorful ingenuity, this mosaic remained the same when observed from any distance. No luminous depiction of a divine landscape or picture of heroics would be revealed.

______

The constantly irreverent tapping of his foot abraded the uneasy noir of the waiting room. This waiting room was like every other waiting room in every other hospital throughout the country; standard. Its normalcy was only interrupted by the peculiar man sitting in the waiting room, perfunctorily flipping through a magazine, not really reading anything. A childlike satisfaction erupted from his quick beating heart every time the ends of his left thumb and adjacent finger rubbed across the corners of each new page. On the cover, a brilliantly golden dog was frozen in the air, suspended by its jubilation. A wide smile was plastered across its face in anticipation of catching the ball that had just begun its descent. The lively scenery seemed to bend around the animal's lithe frame, blurred in a way that bolstered the boldness of the dog. Despite its detail, the picture was completely unhelpful in deciphering the content of the publication. The cover and the actual, numbered pages of the journal were two totally unrelated and distinct things. The only commonality they shared being the fact that nothing about them was authentic to the original journal. Each page was a collage of images arranged in asymmetric patterns.The first page itself was drowned in an assortment of pictures that varied from exotic plants from foreign places to brightly colored bugs and insects.The cover image of the dog was simply a stock photo the man had printed out and glued to the cover of a magazine he had gotten in the mail one day. An older woman sitting across from the man was the only other person in the waiting room; she, too, had decided to preoccupy herself with some reading material. However, hers was much more drab. When she had arrived, the habitual nature of her visit coaxed her into picking up the first issue in a stack. They were all  neatly piled on the table next to her chair, taking the smallest amount of space possible despite being alone on the stand. Simultaneously, she eased herself down into the familiar cushion of the seat and opened the first page, and began to skim. Her ancient eyes seemed to dry out  further with every page she flipped. It would have actually been difficult to decipher whether or not she was alive if not for the scratching sound of the withered paper being ground between her starved fingers.  

For a moment, her lazy gray eyes, with great strain, extricated themselves from the pages they were locked onto and her gaze fell on the man across the waiting room.

It took him a while to notice her deathly stare on him. 

“ Oh, hello there ma’am!”

The older woman blinked, shocked by the exuberance of this odd man’s smile and the elation that rode the waves of his words like waves. His cheerfulness was offensive.

Her parched lips cracked open just enough to let the wispy remnants of a voice out. It sounded as if she hadn’t used it in years; in actuality, she hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks. Not a single person. In fact, her gauzy eyes hadn’t seen a person whom see deemed worth talking to in a very long time, or rather she hadn’t met anyone who wasn’t just like her for some time. Every second longer that her unfortunately hued eyes rested on the man's face, the more her disdain grew.

   

“Don’t stay too long... you might catch something.” 

Her voice sounded exactly as you would expect…grimy, old, beaten. However it still carried a menacing undertone that exacerbated the jarring nature of her words. Each syllable plowed through the former with unmatched fury that seemed too forboding to be emanating from the body of such a small, petite woman. Her harshness juxtaposed with the soft aura of the man before her.   

Still beaming a smile so wide that his pearly teeth could brighten the very depths of the ocean, the man replies 

“Iabsolutelylovecatch!” he exclaimed

Her face creased in agonizing anger, “Are you mocking me?”

 ”No, not at all ma'am, I played it all of the time with my dad when I was kid! We would throw baseballsandfootballsandvolleyballs, oooh we used to even toss around this rather experienced tennis ball - now that I think about it, all of the balls we used to toss around were weathered a bit, but that was probably because my dad never had the time to go out and buy new ones - he said he hated those big stores anyway because they never have properly priced options so idontknow where he got ours from thatswhoimheretoseebytheway - maybe we could have a catch while imhere - I don’t know what we’ll be thro...  ” 

She could stand for no more of his volcanic spewing of foolish reminiscing. Quick with a heated response, she retorted the only way she knew how. 

“I never got to play catch,” she said nastily. Unknowingly, the young man had unleashed a torrent of insatiable rage.

“I never had a father, I never had a mother either. I wasn’t allowed to play as a child. In the orphanage, we worked and fantastical ideas of playing catch were expelled out of us like demons with hours of labor and beatings.” A bitter resonance seeped into her words and the chaotic and untamed vexations that the man caused her began to manifest. 

“I had to watch every other little girl get plucked up like a cherished flower, picked. Accepted. While I ,the weed, was showered in the herbicide life provided.” Her contempt for the stranger was so raw that it was completely lost on her that they were no longer talking about catch, in any sense of the word.

“Whoa! You lived in an orphanage? Thatissoawesome! I bet it was cool to live with so many other kids. Did you all have nicknames. What was yours? I heard kids sometimes get mistreated in places like that though, Idontknowaboutyoubut if that happened to me Iwouldbustoutoftherelikeasuperhero!”

“Arnan Blythe” a nurse called out,” your father is ready to see you, please follow me.”

“Welp it was great chatting it up with you lady, but I have to go see my dad now. I haven't seen him in a long time so we have a. Lot. to. Catch. Up. on.” he smiled and winked at her as if to further impart his very clear message. With that, he rolled up his colorfully collaged magazine, tucked it under his arm and hopped out of his seat into step with the nurse down the long grey hallway.

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“Okay sir, here we are. Please try to be as quiet as possible. your father is still comatose so don't expect for him to be responsive, but if he does show any signs of being awake, contact me or any other hospital staff member. Enjoy your visit.” 

“Thank you so much, have a good one, I loved talking to you!” The nurse had successfully endured a five minute conversation with Arnan. In her opinion, far too long. He said every word in a lilting, sing-song voice that reminded her of child actors in musicals. She had remained silent all throughout their journey in the grimy, grim, gray hospital hallways. Expertly navigating past corridors and rooms, all the while avoiding conversation with the strange man trailing her and shadowing her every movement. It was almost as if each step she took was empowered with  the promise of escaping his presence. But with every step, a new shadow was cast onto the  walls, thus he continued following her; rambling about the finer points of cotton candy flavors. 

“Okaybyelady thanks again!” He knocked on the door, in an expectant way. Then theatrically pushed the the door open, making his grand entrance. “Daaaaaaaaad it’s me, its’s me, it’s meeeeee!” He pranced into the room like a ballet dancer would a stage in full declaration of arrival. The calmness of the room was  disturbed by a colorful pebble that dropped into its still water. Ripples of blue, and pink, and red, and green, and purple bounced around in the boxy confines of the room, prodding each corner with discomfort; rising and falling in conjunction with the rise and fall of the vitals signs monitor. 

The rest of the room was boring.  

To be continued . . .