Hospital “The Color of Glass”

I am here.

Here on Wellington Street.

It is so different from the piece of it I am used to, yet it is hard to deny its familiarity. It is an echo, a whisper in the same voice.

I had hoped that finding you would have been easy, that you would have remained at that old apartment building, even if it was going to hurt. I think that was an unfair presumption. That place smells of sea water still, and there is a film on the tub that won't go away. I have decided not to stay there either, picking a different room nearby in the hope that maybe you would return.

The owner knew your face. He knew your name.

He said you talked about me a lot...

I smiled when he told me what you said.

I ran into a kid today. He was sitting on his front steps, wrapped in blankets; a cocoon of fabric that I imagine was the culmination of all the available materials. He was staring off into space...no...he was staring up and the streetlamps. And as I followed his gaze, I immediately understood what he was looking at and why.

I have been researching it, checking local listings and articles for an explanation. They are saying that it is a manufacturing error, one that is slowly but surely going to be corrected just as soon as things get back to normal. But I know the truth. And so does the boy, if only in some far, distant way.

The streetlamps at night, alight and burning, are purple.

An issue of the glass.

Or something else.

I asked the child where his parents were. He looked past me, but I could see the wheels working in his head. He looked up at the sky, then back to the light, and then he told me.

“I can't remember.”
I asked him their names. I asked him his name.

“I can't remember...”

He did not seem disturbed by this. I remember reading an account of someone who did feel distress, but not him. He was unfettered from the responsibility of grief. He was, after all, just a child. A lonely one, but one all the same. And though he was free to think and wander, he clearly hadn't moved for some time.

His feet were bare. He hardly seemed to notice them, peeking out from under the blankets.

After a short while I brought him inside. There was silence in the house, and as I called out I was filled with dread at the empty void that sat outside of the my line of sight. Not a groan was uttered by the home. There was not the steady hum of electric light. There was not the sound of the heat turning on when I adjusted the thermostat.

It was an abandoned...a forgotten space.

For a forgotten child.

For a child who forgot.

I made him some food and I tried to take stock of the place. Room by room went by in a delirious horror as I went from place to place, only to find empty spaces. Liminal spaces, the beds gone, pictures missing from frames, and clothes absent from closets.

At first, I was convinced that maybe this wasn't even the kid's house, but that thought was soon lost as I went to go and see what the room at the end of the hall was. It was his room. Of that I am certain. There were toys and there were pictures, but the pictures were only of him. I was about to leave then, to go grab the kid and bring him to the police station, but I stopped in my tracks when I saw what was left behind the door.

Behind the door was a dismantled crib, and it did not take much to realize there was a space on the side of the room where another, smaller bed was supposed to be.

I went downstairs, ready to pick up the child.

There was a purple light coming from the kitchen.

I was almost there in time. At least, I hope I was. I hoped that my running down the stairs was not wholly pointless, even though I know it was. Still I tried, taking the final few steps hard as I launched myself off, my ankle buckling under the unprepared weight. Still I pushed through the pain, and I don't think I could have gotten there any faster.

By the time I reached the kitchen the boy was gone, a clump of blankets all that remained of what was once a body.

But the light remained.

And I looked at it.

I started screaming...I haven't screamed like that since my father died. My mind...it was being pulled...there is so much pain in it. So much sickness.

I felt myself rise into the air, my body unable to move as it contorted and twisted and cracked and cracked and cracked...

It...let me go...I escaped?

I can't remember.

I just remember screaming.

As I left the house my eyes became more accustomed for what it was I was supposed to be seeing. All around me, even in a place I was not familiar with, there was evidence of things going wrong. Things that have gone missing.

Things that do not exist. Cannot exist. Ceased to exist. Never did exist.

All of these these things all at once, and sometimes individually.

Why do I remember the boy?

I think I sprained my ankle. Maybe I did something worse. I try not to think about it, but the way my skin aches causes the pain to perhaps feel worse than it is. I tried to go to the hospital, despite reasoning that it was going to be overwhelmed with patients. People fighting against the cold.

Victims and more.

I needn't have bothered.

The hospital was deserted.

I looked up at the structure, and noted the strange way the building was constructed. At first I thought that it was consisting of odd angles and off kilter room placements, but I soon realized what was making it seem so strange to me.

I figured the building was built originally as close to a perfect rectangle as possible, to best utilize the space available.

But now it is altogether different.

Now the shape is more abstract, as rooms and hallways are pulled away and lost into the shades of time. I went inside, trying to see if I could find anyone. I was hoping I would, even after my experience earlier that day. But as I wandered the halls, running into dead ends and doors that led into the outside with no balcony or floor to speak of, my hope for finding someone became less and less, as I realized anything I would find wouldn't be normal.

The Purple Light.

I feel sick inside as I try to draw this out.

I saw something at the hospital. A thing that shouldn't be here.

Something that followed me.

A washer of blood.

But I cannot remember what is its name.

I only remember the boy.

I love you.

Please wait for me.