Free Write
02.04.2010
Prompt:
“after a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain”
It was early evening and I could hear the soft sounds of people in their homes getting ready for supper, a TV there, a child’s laugh in that home, a woman’s shout for her children, or maybe a dog. Delicious scents of the living tainted the air, mixing smells with the clean fresh scent of a new beginning, of sins hidden in the gentle rain. It was cool, not cold, a good temperature. The rain was drizzling down, cooling the evening at the same pace of the sunset. I’d sat in that hospital for days. I watched, and waited. And when it finally became clear what I needed to do, I left. I have nothing more to wait for. I will go to the hotel, just a few blocks from the hospital. Walk through the cobblestone lined streets, past the shade trees and iron lamp posts. I will walk into the beautiful courtyard, set with the rod iron outdoor benches, the koi pond, and the huge weeping willow. Into the tastefully decorated lobby, where the young desk keep waits discreetly to check in new guests. I will nod in acknowledgement to his softly murmured greeting. Keep going, talking the stairs, its only two flights. I will slide the key into the door, not one of those new fangled electronic door, rather an old fashioned brass key. Listen to the soft click, I will push it open. Finally. I walk to the bed. My bag is packed. It’s been packed for days. I light my cigarette, going to the window. Take a deep inhale, eyes closed, tasting the tobacco mixed with the rain scented air of a faraway place. It could be a dream I think to myself. I could just lie on the bed, and wake up in the morning, telling myself, it was a dream. Then instead of grabbing my bag and freedom, I can go to the hospital like I have every day of this duty, I can continue on pretending. It wont be hard. That’s all it was for the last few years anyway. A game of pretend. Another deep breath. I shudder as I exhale. I flick my cigarette out the window, not bothering to close the balcony doors behind me, letting the cooling air flirt through the sheer curtains. I grab my bag, without a look behind me I shut the door and start down the stairs. Into the street I walk, just my one bag and myself. I don’t bother to look around. I know where I’m going now. I have nothing else left and no one else to turn to. Who would take me in? I’ve changed everything for this game of pretend. No one left to recognize me, no one left alive, I have no other choice. In order to really make a difference, in order to really move past this point I have to accept who I am, all of my talents, despite the fact the only thing I’ve been talented in is death and lies. The demand of acceptance, of acknowledging the talents as my own choices, no forced by a debt of ownership, the gift of freedom, was the last whisper of the dying, in an exhaling breath, while the life was stolen the freedom was granted, in that dank hospital. With its well lit corridors to mask the shadows of death stealing the souls of the living all I hear is “Your debt is paid“.
Summarized:
1st person
Psychic distance is close, but with a zooming in.
‘Pathetic fallacy’ - john Ruskin : is when the exterior world conveys the emotion of the character
Shift in verb tense present to future to present, dynamic manipulation of time, cinematographic… architecture beyond realm of story.
Voice has resolve.
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