for security to open the door leading to the air handler room, where I could gain entry to the roof -- just like I had done at least a dozen times before.
It always seemed to take at least 15 minutes for one of the security guards to get to the fifth floor by way of the 'D' elevator, reserved for staff only. 15 minutes is a long time. It's long enough for me to have counted the ceiling tiles. There are 46.5 ceiling tiles running longitudinally. The hallway is 186 feet long and six feet wide. 15 minutes is long enough for me to question exactly *when* harvest gold was ever appealing. To anyone.
That first door on the left leads to the offices for the Department of Pathology. On this day, there was a particularly pungent odor emanating from somewhere in this hallway. It's the kind of odor you recognize immediately. If you've smelled it once, you'll never forget it. This is the Department of Pathology, so really, the smell of death isn't all that surprising. It certainly caught me out as soon as I stepped off the elevator. But I reeled it back in despite all the things that were going through my head (like when Neo is standing before The Architect and all his thoughts and feelings are displayed on a score of monitors behind him in
The Matrix Reloaded, despite his outward composure) and even muttered under my breath,
"Welp, it's pathology; business as usual, I guess..."
Not more than a minute later, a short, dumpy woman exploded through the doorway, out of the reception area in the office of the Department of Pathology, clearly looking for someone, clearly at her wits' end. Almost as if it had been choreographed, the lady she was looking for -- a veritable mountain of a woman, standing more than six feet tall, and weighing at least 200 lbs -- came from around the corner, behind me, nearly slamming into me because she was reading a piece of paper while walking.
The mountain woman (TMW) sputters:
"Jesus Christ! It stinks in here..."
The short, dumpy woman (SDW), not even acknowledging the complaint, queries with a hint of desperation:
"I've got [XXX] funeral home on the phone, they're looking for the body of [XXX XXX]. Do they have the wrong hospital?"
TMW erupts:
"The hell if I know... LOOK...! Not everybody who dies, comes through pathology, 'ya know..."
And then, as if choreographed again, the two went their separate ways; neither resolving the immediate matters at hand. SDW threw up her arms and walked back into the office, TMW kept walking down the 186 foot-long hallway, eyes fixed on the document.
"Business as usual," I muttered, nodding in agreement with myself.
With what I figured would be at least ten minutes to spare, I had nothing riveting to hold my attention, and my mind wandered -- as it often does -- through the vast expanses of nothing and everything taking up real estate inside my head. It's a scary place in which I wouldn't want anyone else to have to live.
If we're going to take my car on vacation, I'll have to replace the brakes, which is going to cost me at least $600 -- and that's with *ME* doing all the work. S'bullshit... How could it cost so goddamned much for rotors and pads -- big, race-car-like-brakes or not? I really like the car. There isn't really anything else I'd want on the road today, so I guess I shouldn't complain. Well, alright, yeah... The Audi S4 Avant is the one thing I'd rather have, but that's damn-near $60-grand by the time I'd put everything I'd want on it, and it's certainly not twice as good as my Legacy GT. Ah, well... At $60-grand, I certainly don't need to worry about it. Track days are awesome. I hope I get to do some this year. No, screw it... I'm *GOING* to do some this year. Last year, I didn't because of the new job and the new house and the fact that I was broke as a mofo. I'm still broke as a mofo, but I'm sure I can scare up a few bucks. I just got a raise after all. And if I get my CCNA certification this spring, I'll get a raise again in June. I wonder how hard the CCNA boot-camp will be. I mean, I look at some of these people who hold a CCNA, CCNP -- hell, the CCIEs I know aren't exactly MENSA material...I'd say that there was an almost audible click when the gravity of the exchange I just witnessed between the short, dumpy woman and the mountain woman simultaneously kicked me in the stomach and the back of knees, and poured ice-water down my back. I would say that I could feel time and space shifting with that accompanying high-pitched ringing sound I've always heard ever since I was a kid, but I know better. It's just a feeling I've always felt. I can't explain it beyond that. I can see it, and almost duplicate it in my mind, but there's no way I could ever convey that ringing sound and the warping of time and space that happens right before my eyes to anyone else in any meaningful way -- or that feeling of the weird kind of magnetism that feels like it's trying to pull my ears together at the top of my head. I just know that whenever I see it and feel it and hear it, it means something important. I don't know what, but something.
"Do you hear that sound, Mr. Anderson? That's the sound of inevitability. The sound your death." -- Agent Smith, The Matrix
"Jesus, this is a children's hospital!" I may have said that aloud -- I can't be sure. If I did, I'd plead my case to anyone who held it against me. The person those ladies were talking about was someone's child --
*IS* someone's child.
This is a
CHILDREN'S hospital, I muttered to myself over and over again; the words just hanging there like a kind of acrid, cigar-smoke haze you'd find in an old bowling alley men's room after passing that man in the hallway with the cigar in his mouth and the sports section of that day's newspaper tucked under his arm, the toilet tank still filling; recovering after the flush.
Moments later, the gray door of the 'Staff 'D5' ' elevator opened, and the security guard stepped off with a keyring that had to be 5 inches in diameter. Because of what I was dealing with I can't say, but I'll bet he was earlier than I would've expected. I don't think I stood there for ten minutes pondering this. He asked me where I needed to go. Twice. The first time he asked me, I didn't hear him. My mind was too busy trying to draw pictures of the child's face whose identity seemed a mystery to more than one person. This was one of the most disturbing things of all, because the only picture my mind could render was that of my own son's face. I was suddenly riven with panic; desperately needing to know RIGHT NOW that he was OK.
I led the security guard up one flight of stairs in the 'P' stairwell to the locked door. He fumbled with the dozens of keys on his massive ring while I struggled under the weight of all this. He finally got the door open. I walked in and let it close behind me, not even thanking him for doing his job.
I did my work on the roof as quickly as possible, but it would later prove to be unsuccessful. I would have to go back up there three more times to get what would ordinarily be a no-nonsense, simple wireless bridge over a short distance, to function as it should. In fact, it wasn't until yesterday, that I got both sides to talk to each other.
I walked down five flights of stairs -- maybe trying to rattle those thoughts out of my head -- and out to my car. I picked my way through the morass of traffic that always confounds me. It seems to come to a stop for absolutely no reason on this one section of freeway. I was somewhat comforted by the fact that as I drove home, the dull, toothache-like pain throughout my whole body faded. It faded to a point where it didn't fade anymore. It just stayed there, where even today, it remains in some small part.
When I got home, I actually did what I could to
avoid my son. I was afraid of coming undone if I got too close to him. That eventually passed. Later, after dinner, clean-up, bath and story-time, I resigned myself to just letting the emotions flow so that I could hopefully move past this. My focus changed, and I began to think about the parents.
All the parents who have lost a child.
It's positively unfathomable for me.
I lay there with my son, stroking his hair, listening to him fall asleep. I thought of what those parents would give to be able to yell at their son or daughter again, the way I had that night for not listening to me. I thought of what they would give to be annoyed one more time by their son's unrelenting plea coming from down the hall,
"Daaaaaddy...! Come play with me!"
And we all know, it's not that we don't
want to play with them, but the kitchen always needs to be cleaned up, the toys won't put themselves away, the configuration that we promised our bosses before tomorrow morning still has to be written, and it's already 8:30 p.m. I can't believe how much time I squandered before he was born, nor how I used to think that I didn't have any time to get anything done.
I thought of how unfair it is for them; how big the hole in their hearts must be that could never ever be repaired. I couldn't even entertain the possibility that I was just lucky. For the most part, I don't believe in luck. If you're walking through a forest and a tree falls on you, I suppose that's unlucky. Hitting the lottery is just chance. I don't think it's luck.
That I have my son to love and raise and discipline and hold at the end of the day is... Maybe it really
is luck. But I would like to believe that I make choices and live my life in such a way that helps direct him to make good decisions, love others and learn -- every day of his life. The trouble is, I'm sure those parents who've lost their children felt they were doing the exact same thing. Maybe they were just unlucky.
As I lay there in his bed, nearly unable to breathe from the crush of this inequity, I drifted off to sleep, my body wrapped around his.
