The Last to Leave
Marian is at the
entrance with her cardboard suitcase when I get to work. “It’s not Thursday,” I
say, but she just stares towards the high fence riddled with windblown plastic.
“Why don’t you go inside? They’ll be here tomorrow,” I lie. A faint smile leads
her away from me. For her, every day’s Thursday. Marion starts singing and I
listen as I sweep.
Vandals came again last
night, taking photos and covering the walls with snippets about ashes, horror,
and mortality. A mockery of the brittle photos of classical ruins on the walls.
Some patients greet me
as I pass them. Empty wheelchairs and beds stand a silent vigil in dust laden
rooms.
Orange and scarlet
autumn leaves have blown in through empty windows, mingling with flakes of pale
paint peeling from the unkempt walls. This place will not remain like the ruins
in the photos. Soon we’ll be reclaimed; the empty concrete shell, Marian, the
patients, and me.
We’ll rest then; our
lives no longer bound here, written in peeling paint upon decaying walls. We
will become lost memories, an unknown white flare in a photograph.
I’m simply waiting for
everyone to leave before I lock up one last time.
A janitor is always
the last to leave.
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment