Anywhere but Here

“Dad! Dad!”
“Let go son, we’ll take care of your father, alright?” the doctor said
“No! I won’t! Dad! Wake up!”

The white corridors of the St. Joseph Hospital seemed more like a dark empty void to me that day. It reeked with that weird Hospital-ish scent, filled with people that if not seated in wheelchairs are bandaged over or tagged with dextrose bags.

I waited for hours with my mom beside me. Hours seemed like forever until the door busted open. Slowly, the doctor, covered in blood approached us.

“I’m sorry Ma’am… We did everything we could... It’s just... Too late… “

Even at a very young age, I know what that meant; I see it in movies all the time, though it never really occurred to me that this will happen to my life. I was trembling, frozen and my senses felt numb. It’s like the world stopped before my very eyes. I loved my Dad, I really did. And I’m damn proud to say that he’s the best one out there, for me at least. That day, I knew that things will never be the same again. I shouldn’t have chased that god forsaken ball down the street, what in the hell am I thinking? If it wasn’t for me, Dad could still be alive. God, I was a 7-year old kid back then, stupid and reckless. I never really cared about anything. My life revolved around the joys of the world until that day.

I guess you can say that I had been living with my eyes half-open. My Dad had my life spared while he died in return. A world of equivalent exchange, that’s what this ball of dump is made of. Life is never fair and that includes the very concept of People Come and Go. Nothing lasts forever, that’s for sure.

This place brought back that searing agony of those memories. I trembled as every moment came back to me, those painful and dark remnants of the past. Once again, I am standing at the very place where reality collides with my Dreams, hopes and fantasies.