Exhibit A Second Chance: Nothing Good Will Come of This
I know this isn't the smartest of ideas but I can't resist an abandoned building. And this one, this is one of my favorite kinds. A hospital. There is nothing as interesting as an abandoned hospital or school. And I have personal ties to this hospital. I spent three weeks here after a suicide attempt. I'm not sure what my reaction will be here so I want to go in alone. I have to do it now though. Rumor is that this place will be expensive downtown condos soon.
I park and slip through the door that I know has a broken lock. It's pitch black in the tunnel so I turn on my head lamp and make sure that I have my flash light and extra batteries in my bag. I'm in the tunnel that dead bodies traveled on their way to the morgue. I have a choice of three directions to turn. I choose to go straight ahead and hope I can find my way out later. I have all day but it's a big building. I need to be out before dark. You never know what you'll find in an abandoned building when the sun goes down.
My light barely makes any difference in the dark. It's more of a night light than any real light but I see a door in front of me. I open it and realize I'm actually entering the morgue. I'm excited and scared at the same time. I can't believe I'm doing this. Do I want to go on or turn back? Am I sure about this? Then my foot slips and I scramble to catch myself. I look down to see what I slipped in...
As soon as I see the puddle I freeze. Do I want to know what that is? Part of me wants to throw up just imagining and the other part wants to run my fingers through it. Surely it's not blood? Is it? I stoop down and take off one of my gloves. I run my fingers through the liquid and I smell it. No odor really, but as cold as it is in here would it have an odor? I laugh at myself for freaking out already and I take a picture. As I stand up I bang my head. I really should have taken a better look around to get my bearings when I came in. What in the hell did I just hit my head on? It made a loud bang and it hurts. I'm already wishing for a Tylenol or something. Damn.
I sit there for a minute trying to not think about what might be on that floor and I wait for my head to stop ringing. Do I really want to do this so badly? Yes. As scared as I am, I feel like I have to do it. I have to face this place and the demons that I left behind here. I take a deep breath and start trying to see something I can use to get up so I don't slip in creepy puddle again. I reach up and I start feeling around. And I swear I just grabbed a hand. Ok brain, I know this is creepy and it's the morgue but there are no bodies here anymore. Stop playing tricks on me. I finally grab the edge of a table and get myself off of the floor. Then I shine my mag light around. Holy shit, I did really grab a hand. A HAND! It's hanging out of one of the storage things that the bodies are kept in.
I want to scream. And scream some more. And run. I want to run like hell and get out of here as fast as I can. But instead I take a deep breath and stand for a second. There is no way that a body would still be here right? And even if one got left behind it would be just bones and dust by now right? Right? Oh my God, what if this person was murdered and stashed here? Homeless people take shelter in abandoned places all the time. Or what if it had to do with drugs? A meth lab was found somewhere in this place awhile back. That's how I found out it was abandoned and closed. I never even knew before that news report.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
What should I do? Should I call someone? But then I'd have to admit I was in here. That's an instant breaking and entering charge even though the door was unlocked. And then a trespassing charge. Because I KNOW I am not supposed to be here. What would Nancy Drew do? Or Trixie Belden? I loved those books as a kid. What would they do right now? Well, first they'd scream. How come they never got arrested for going into places they shouldn't? Oh wait, back to the situation here. Investigate. That is what they'd do. Investigate. So I do. I step closer and I shine my light into the metal box. No body. HA! Silly me. It's a rubber Halloween hand. Whoever put that in there was quite the joker. It's gonna take awhile for that adrenaline rush to die down.
I finally let go of the table and start to take a real look around the room. It's cool. In a creepy sort of way. I've never been in a morgue before and I don't know what half of this stuff is. But look! There's a door into another room and I can vaguely make out another table with bottles on it and some cabinets on the wall. I wonder what might be in those? I wonder what those bottles are. My curiosity gets the best of me and I lean down to check out the bottles. They're labeled and there is something in them. Body parts and tissue. Gross. But they're pulling me in. I am trying to read the labels in the very little light I have.
I can't read most of them but one has a mitrovalve in it. Isn't that a piece of a heart? Yuck! Why did someone keep this and why were they left behind? This place looks like people were here and just suddenly never came back.
These rooms are making me a little claustrophobic and I have limited time in here. I HAVE to get out before dark. As in, in the car with the doors locked, out of here.
I finally make my way out of the morgue and into a hallway. I follow the lines on the floor and I have no idea where I'm following them to. But I know some hospitals have these colored lines as a guide to different areas in the building. I get to a double door and I push it open. I'm in the emergency room. There is so much equipment sitting around. Dentistry bowls, beds, scalpels, everything. Didn't anyone get notice that this place was closing? There is millions of dollars of equipment sitting right here in this room alone. Paperwork, a basket with clothes that were cut off of people in it... This is creepier than I expected and I've been in other abandoned hospitals. This is a hobby for me. I've seen things left behind. But this is extreme.
There is a calendar on the wall. I walk over and shine my light on it. Was this the final day that people were here? Where doctors and nurses were doing their jobs? Where people were sick and bleeding and crying and in pain? Because no one has been here to take any equipment or clean up. There is so much here that I can actually SEE the people here living out their days and waiting to finish a long shift to go home. People praying for loved ones or for death or just relief from pain.
I finally make my way out to another hallway and more doors to find myself in radiology. I need to get to the 5th floor. But I can't resist looking at everything. It's so mysterious and interesting and confusing. Why was all of this left? Isn't there some law that says patient records and hazardous materials have to be destroyed? My feet hit something on the floor. It feels like paper but it's not paper. I can't resist getting a better look.
Mammograms? With people's names and information on them. The whole files. There are some that clearly show tumors and the file notes along with them. I wonder if these people are still alive. I hope that they all are. I hope that they kicked cancer's ass. And I am furious that their personal information has been left for anyone to see. I feel like they have been violated in this very personal way. I just don't understand. Why did this place close? While I remember it as being hell, I know it was really a nice hospital.
I can't stand here asking myself questions all day. I need to find the stairs. God I wish the elevators still worked. I'm not looking forward to five flights of steps in complete darkness. I fall up the steps on my own. Who knows what I'm capable of in the dark with five flights to go. How many steps is that anyway?
I haven't given you an idea yet of just how dark it is in here have I? This is darker than dark. This is velvet black that you feel like is suffocating you. I can't even see my own hand if I turn my head lamp off. It's just a never ending wall of black. I took a picture to show how dark it was and how little my light did to push the darkness away. And something creepy and interesting showed up on my screen. I think I need to get out of this area fast. If this is happening in the day time, what will happen in here after dark?
I get out of that area as fast as I can and hope I get somewhere with windows soon. The dark and the random sounds are really starting to freak me out. Daylight would be really welcome right now.
I finally manage to pant my way to the fifth floor. I didn't even look at the third floor. It was the legend of five. If you were bad or didn't cooperate you got sent to three. And you didn't want to be on three. Bad things happened there. The really dangerous crazy people were there. Those of us on five, we just had temporary problems right?
I walked past my room. I just couldn't face it yet. I stood looking at the doors that had been locked to keep us in and opened them and closed them over and over. They were unlocked now. I could go out if I wanted to. I didn't have to stay here and do this. I could just close the book and walk away. Except I couldn't. I can't.
I walk in and out of the other rooms remembering the people who had been in them. Where were they now? Did they get better? Did this place help them? Or were they turned loose like I was? There is where I sat telling the doctor that I still wanted to die and he he released me with a cab voucher and the address of a homeless shelter. Here is where the piano was. There was a little old man named Herb who used to play this piano. He drove everyone crazy (or should I say crazier?) but he was such a sweet old man. If you overlooked his predilection for prostitutes anyway. The piano is gone and I wonder why it was taken but all of this expensive equipment is still here. Even on this floor there are beds still made up and televisions still on the wall. I stand at the nurses station where my parents dropped off a bag of clothes for me but refused to see me.
This is too hard. I shouldn't have come. I shouldn't do this. What if I break all over again just standing in that room remembering? I should work my way back downstairs right? It will take time and I need to get out before dark. I got to the fifth floor. I don't need to go into my actual room right? I proved my point right? That I'm free of this place? That I'm not trapped here any more?
I find an old couch and sit down. I need to breathe. My stomach is in knots and I'm still panting from the long climb up the stairs. I can't breathe. Why did I do this? It was years ago. Nine years. I shouldn't be here. I don't need to be here. Except that I do. I have demons to fight here even if they are only in my head.
Without even realizing that I'm walking I find myself standing at the door. Remembering when I was shown to this room. Walking like a zombie after all of the drugs that I crammed down my throat. Exhausted from being up for days. Exhausted from pain and frustration and loneliness. I just want to sleep and never wake up. Except that I can't. I am checked on every two hours. I have to get up and shower and go to group and go to one on one therapy. I have to talk and I don't want to. I don't want the pills they're giving me and I try to spit them out. And I am sick of that damned piano playing down the hall. Doesn't he know any other songs?
And then, I step through the door. I make sure that the door can't be closed or locked behind me. And I look around.
This is it. The room that has haunted me for the last ten years. The room that I still feel locked in. I cried here. I tried to slit my wrists with my plastic arm band. And I almost succeeded. The room where I cried for hours and swore at everyone I knew and even some people that I didn't. The room where I would have bargained my whole life on to just get out. The room where I wanted to decide if I lived or died. These people didn't know me. They didn't know how miserable and lonely my life was. They didn't understand how everyone I loved left me. They didn't understand me at all. They threw a diagnosis and some pills at me and said I was cured.
I cry here. And I scream. I don't care who hears me now. I'm angry. I'm broken. I'm here and I need to let all of this go. Even though I know it will never be gone. This place will always be part of me even with this little bit of closure. This place will haunt me for the rest of my life. Did I do the right thing by coming? I don't know. I just know that I felt it pulling me back from the minute I heard that it was closed and was going to be torn down.
I'm exhausted. And it's getting late. I should head downstairs but oddly I feel something telling me to stay. That I belong here. That I shouldn't leave. Why would I leave? Here I can be alone and silent and insulated from the world.
I shake my head at those thoughts and head back down the stairs. Just as I reach for the door handle that will put me back into the parking garage I hear a voice from behind me...
"I've been waiting for you".
If you'd like to see the rest of the photos from my trip to this hospital they are HERE
I park and slip through the door that I know has a broken lock. It's pitch black in the tunnel so I turn on my head lamp and make sure that I have my flash light and extra batteries in my bag. I'm in the tunnel that dead bodies traveled on their way to the morgue. I have a choice of three directions to turn. I choose to go straight ahead and hope I can find my way out later. I have all day but it's a big building. I need to be out before dark. You never know what you'll find in an abandoned building when the sun goes down.
My light barely makes any difference in the dark. It's more of a night light than any real light but I see a door in front of me. I open it and realize I'm actually entering the morgue. I'm excited and scared at the same time. I can't believe I'm doing this. Do I want to go on or turn back? Am I sure about this? Then my foot slips and I scramble to catch myself. I look down to see what I slipped in...
As soon as I see the puddle I freeze. Do I want to know what that is? Part of me wants to throw up just imagining and the other part wants to run my fingers through it. Surely it's not blood? Is it? I stoop down and take off one of my gloves. I run my fingers through the liquid and I smell it. No odor really, but as cold as it is in here would it have an odor? I laugh at myself for freaking out already and I take a picture. As I stand up I bang my head. I really should have taken a better look around to get my bearings when I came in. What in the hell did I just hit my head on? It made a loud bang and it hurts. I'm already wishing for a Tylenol or something. Damn.
I sit there for a minute trying to not think about what might be on that floor and I wait for my head to stop ringing. Do I really want to do this so badly? Yes. As scared as I am, I feel like I have to do it. I have to face this place and the demons that I left behind here. I take a deep breath and start trying to see something I can use to get up so I don't slip in creepy puddle again. I reach up and I start feeling around. And I swear I just grabbed a hand. Ok brain, I know this is creepy and it's the morgue but there are no bodies here anymore. Stop playing tricks on me. I finally grab the edge of a table and get myself off of the floor. Then I shine my mag light around. Holy shit, I did really grab a hand. A HAND! It's hanging out of one of the storage things that the bodies are kept in.
I want to scream. And scream some more. And run. I want to run like hell and get out of here as fast as I can. But instead I take a deep breath and stand for a second. There is no way that a body would still be here right? And even if one got left behind it would be just bones and dust by now right? Right? Oh my God, what if this person was murdered and stashed here? Homeless people take shelter in abandoned places all the time. Or what if it had to do with drugs? A meth lab was found somewhere in this place awhile back. That's how I found out it was abandoned and closed. I never even knew before that news report.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
What should I do? Should I call someone? But then I'd have to admit I was in here. That's an instant breaking and entering charge even though the door was unlocked. And then a trespassing charge. Because I KNOW I am not supposed to be here. What would Nancy Drew do? Or Trixie Belden? I loved those books as a kid. What would they do right now? Well, first they'd scream. How come they never got arrested for going into places they shouldn't? Oh wait, back to the situation here. Investigate. That is what they'd do. Investigate. So I do. I step closer and I shine my light into the metal box. No body. HA! Silly me. It's a rubber Halloween hand. Whoever put that in there was quite the joker. It's gonna take awhile for that adrenaline rush to die down.
I finally let go of the table and start to take a real look around the room. It's cool. In a creepy sort of way. I've never been in a morgue before and I don't know what half of this stuff is. But look! There's a door into another room and I can vaguely make out another table with bottles on it and some cabinets on the wall. I wonder what might be in those? I wonder what those bottles are. My curiosity gets the best of me and I lean down to check out the bottles. They're labeled and there is something in them. Body parts and tissue. Gross. But they're pulling me in. I am trying to read the labels in the very little light I have.
I can't read most of them but one has a mitrovalve in it. Isn't that a piece of a heart? Yuck! Why did someone keep this and why were they left behind? This place looks like people were here and just suddenly never came back.
These rooms are making me a little claustrophobic and I have limited time in here. I HAVE to get out before dark. As in, in the car with the doors locked, out of here.
I finally make my way out of the morgue and into a hallway. I follow the lines on the floor and I have no idea where I'm following them to. But I know some hospitals have these colored lines as a guide to different areas in the building. I get to a double door and I push it open. I'm in the emergency room. There is so much equipment sitting around. Dentistry bowls, beds, scalpels, everything. Didn't anyone get notice that this place was closing? There is millions of dollars of equipment sitting right here in this room alone. Paperwork, a basket with clothes that were cut off of people in it... This is creepier than I expected and I've been in other abandoned hospitals. This is a hobby for me. I've seen things left behind. But this is extreme.
There is a calendar on the wall. I walk over and shine my light on it. Was this the final day that people were here? Where doctors and nurses were doing their jobs? Where people were sick and bleeding and crying and in pain? Because no one has been here to take any equipment or clean up. There is so much here that I can actually SEE the people here living out their days and waiting to finish a long shift to go home. People praying for loved ones or for death or just relief from pain.
I finally make my way out to another hallway and more doors to find myself in radiology. I need to get to the 5th floor. But I can't resist looking at everything. It's so mysterious and interesting and confusing. Why was all of this left? Isn't there some law that says patient records and hazardous materials have to be destroyed? My feet hit something on the floor. It feels like paper but it's not paper. I can't resist getting a better look.
Mammograms? With people's names and information on them. The whole files. There are some that clearly show tumors and the file notes along with them. I wonder if these people are still alive. I hope that they all are. I hope that they kicked cancer's ass. And I am furious that their personal information has been left for anyone to see. I feel like they have been violated in this very personal way. I just don't understand. Why did this place close? While I remember it as being hell, I know it was really a nice hospital.
I can't stand here asking myself questions all day. I need to find the stairs. God I wish the elevators still worked. I'm not looking forward to five flights of steps in complete darkness. I fall up the steps on my own. Who knows what I'm capable of in the dark with five flights to go. How many steps is that anyway?
I haven't given you an idea yet of just how dark it is in here have I? This is darker than dark. This is velvet black that you feel like is suffocating you. I can't even see my own hand if I turn my head lamp off. It's just a never ending wall of black. I took a picture to show how dark it was and how little my light did to push the darkness away. And something creepy and interesting showed up on my screen. I think I need to get out of this area fast. If this is happening in the day time, what will happen in here after dark?
I get out of that area as fast as I can and hope I get somewhere with windows soon. The dark and the random sounds are really starting to freak me out. Daylight would be really welcome right now.
I finally manage to pant my way to the fifth floor. I didn't even look at the third floor. It was the legend of five. If you were bad or didn't cooperate you got sent to three. And you didn't want to be on three. Bad things happened there. The really dangerous crazy people were there. Those of us on five, we just had temporary problems right?
I walked past my room. I just couldn't face it yet. I stood looking at the doors that had been locked to keep us in and opened them and closed them over and over. They were unlocked now. I could go out if I wanted to. I didn't have to stay here and do this. I could just close the book and walk away. Except I couldn't. I can't.
I walk in and out of the other rooms remembering the people who had been in them. Where were they now? Did they get better? Did this place help them? Or were they turned loose like I was? There is where I sat telling the doctor that I still wanted to die and he he released me with a cab voucher and the address of a homeless shelter. Here is where the piano was. There was a little old man named Herb who used to play this piano. He drove everyone crazy (or should I say crazier?) but he was such a sweet old man. If you overlooked his predilection for prostitutes anyway. The piano is gone and I wonder why it was taken but all of this expensive equipment is still here. Even on this floor there are beds still made up and televisions still on the wall. I stand at the nurses station where my parents dropped off a bag of clothes for me but refused to see me.
This is too hard. I shouldn't have come. I shouldn't do this. What if I break all over again just standing in that room remembering? I should work my way back downstairs right? It will take time and I need to get out before dark. I got to the fifth floor. I don't need to go into my actual room right? I proved my point right? That I'm free of this place? That I'm not trapped here any more?
I find an old couch and sit down. I need to breathe. My stomach is in knots and I'm still panting from the long climb up the stairs. I can't breathe. Why did I do this? It was years ago. Nine years. I shouldn't be here. I don't need to be here. Except that I do. I have demons to fight here even if they are only in my head.
Without even realizing that I'm walking I find myself standing at the door. Remembering when I was shown to this room. Walking like a zombie after all of the drugs that I crammed down my throat. Exhausted from being up for days. Exhausted from pain and frustration and loneliness. I just want to sleep and never wake up. Except that I can't. I am checked on every two hours. I have to get up and shower and go to group and go to one on one therapy. I have to talk and I don't want to. I don't want the pills they're giving me and I try to spit them out. And I am sick of that damned piano playing down the hall. Doesn't he know any other songs?
And then, I step through the door. I make sure that the door can't be closed or locked behind me. And I look around.
This is it. The room that has haunted me for the last ten years. The room that I still feel locked in. I cried here. I tried to slit my wrists with my plastic arm band. And I almost succeeded. The room where I cried for hours and swore at everyone I knew and even some people that I didn't. The room where I would have bargained my whole life on to just get out. The room where I wanted to decide if I lived or died. These people didn't know me. They didn't know how miserable and lonely my life was. They didn't understand how everyone I loved left me. They didn't understand me at all. They threw a diagnosis and some pills at me and said I was cured.
I cry here. And I scream. I don't care who hears me now. I'm angry. I'm broken. I'm here and I need to let all of this go. Even though I know it will never be gone. This place will always be part of me even with this little bit of closure. This place will haunt me for the rest of my life. Did I do the right thing by coming? I don't know. I just know that I felt it pulling me back from the minute I heard that it was closed and was going to be torn down.
I'm exhausted. And it's getting late. I should head downstairs but oddly I feel something telling me to stay. That I belong here. That I shouldn't leave. Why would I leave? Here I can be alone and silent and insulated from the world.
I shake my head at those thoughts and head back down the stairs. Just as I reach for the door handle that will put me back into the parking garage I hear a voice from behind me...
"I've been waiting for you".
If you'd like to see the rest of the photos from my trip to this hospital they are HERE