126
By akarppi
- 576 reads
Ok I am a 14-year-old middle schooler and this is my first time posting my work, so consider this when critiquing. I hope to submit this to my school’s literacy magazine so I would love feedback. Thank you!
The old man shuffled slowly to the iron gate. A sign hung from it, which read, “Please Lock Gate Behind You.” The old man walked through the gate, to the door and pressed the button to his left, the one with the person in a wheelchair on it, the one for handicapped persons. The door automatically opened, then closed behind him. He signed in at the counter further to the left. As the old man entered the second door, a buzzer somewhere went off to signal his arrival. He walked down the long, seemingly endless hallway, along the pasty yellow walls, lined with schedules from past months with events like “Movie Night” or “Bingo with Family and Friends.” The “Fact of the Day” from two weeks ago was still posted on the bulletin board to the right. The old man didn’t acknowledge the white clothed people around him. He stared at the floor, at the gray carpet flecked with dark reds and greens. He entered room 126 without looking up.
Silence. The room was completely silent save the mechanical ticking of the large clock on the wall. The old man stopped at the door, he couldn’t stomach the choking silence around him. He crossed quickly to the end of the room, and desperately looked to the window, searching for open space for his mind to linger. He looked out on the perpetually empty courtyard. It looked like it had been a peaceful place at one time, a place where one would maybe stop to enjoy a book. But today it stood empty. In fact, the old man had never seen anyone in it. Ferns had been planted in the flowerbeds along the edges of the courtyard, but they had become overgrown, so much so that there was little tiling visible. The trees too, oaks the man speculated, had grown so tall, with leaves so large, that very little sunlight could penetrate and fill the courtyard. At that moment, the sun shifted, throwing the shadow of the building over the whole courtyard, engulfing it in cool darkness.
The old turned back to the room and watched the walls, a dull white, dimmed by age. The wallpaper lining the top of the walls, near the ceiling, was a dark red, with green abstract lining running throughout it. The lining looked like green vines, or weeds maybe. It looked like something you would find in a house from the 1960s. The furniture was a similar dark red, cheap with little cushion. There was a nightstand and two cabinets, made of a dark thin wood. One was fairly empty, and the other held the T.V., tissues, and other various medical supplies.
The old man tried to ignore the bed in the center of the room. But as his eyes traced the edges of the gray plastic headboard, his mind flashed through 80 years of memories, as if someone was flipping through millions of photo albums, one after the other. The silence was becoming unbearable. He sat down and threw himself into a large book on Roman History. He begged the book to take him away from the room, from the silence, and eventually it did. He looked up occasionally, hoping for something to change. But nothing ever did. Hour after hour there was only the same, cold silence.
Much later, the old man looked at the clock. The room was darkening, it was getting late. He old man felt a sense of loss, as he did at the end of everyday. He felt frustrated at the room, the silence, at age itself. But these feelings we’re not practical, he was old enough now to understand that. Finally he stood up, considering the room and the hours he had spent there. He walked back down the yellow hallways, through the second door, to the check-in counter. He rhythmically signed out and exited the automatic doors. He shut the gate and locked it, tightly, just as the sign said.
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Comments
Hello arkarppi. I enjoyed
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Akarppi, There is a lot to
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Akarppi, There is a lot to
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