The Abandoned Hospital

I was looking out of the window, through the broken glass that was tinted a long time ago in green. There wasn't anything particularly great about the sight. Just the usual trees, all alike as if siblings standing together. And the scorching sun painting everything in yellow. I took a last puff and threw the butt out. It could have caused a fire but I didn't care. I turned around to face what was left - a hall, large enough for ten families, reeking of damp plaster and medicine. The walls were tiled to a certain height. Above that was white paint, and a pair of steel tubes that once carried oxygen. At their ends were worn-out electric boards and sockets. I tapped the tube with a metal splinter and it echoed. No more oxygen there, no more life. 

High above was a flaked ceiling, dotted with iron hooks without their fans. I wished there was one. On the opposite wall was another set of windows that opened to a courtyard. A whiff of air through the slits provided some relief. The floor wasn't tiled and I hadn't noticed its colour before. So many days and nights spent there and I never noticed the colour of the floor. Grey, with stains of brown and red all over, it reminded me of the patients that had once filled the hall. The stains belonged to them. I rubbed one of them with my foot but it didn't come off.

To my right was a gallery that led to another hall. It used to be the ICU so the stains were fewer and the walls whiter. It was cooler in there and it smelled of nothing. 

Then I took a few steps back and stood in the gallery that connected the two halls. It felt disheartening as there was suffering in the air. 

I lit another cigarette and walked out into the lounge. It had the doctor's cabin and a nurse's station. There was also a small room where they used to keep medicines. A strong odour repelled me when I popped my head in. There were used cotton, discarded catheters, syringes and tourniquets along with strips of expired tablets. They must have forgotten about this room when they left. I let the door open and moved.

Up ahead was a rusted iron grill. A lizard stuck out its neck from underneath it and went back. Just beside the grill was a signboard. Even though its surface was covered with dust and cobwebs, one could still figure out what the instructions were. TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES. I looked at my feet and felt guilty. Wearing shoes in there was almost like stomping people who once filled the lounge, waiting in pain for help. Most of them would be on the ground in want of a bed.

But here lay the irony. One could also not walk barefoot there without getting that sticky feeling in one's feet. There were chances of stepping on a stray needle. I remember walking down the lounge to the general ward without my shoes once. I had stepped on a patient's urine bag and it burst open. My feet were wet and sticky and I felt sick for the rest of that day.

It was a tragedy that very few patients survived. They came with severe injuries to their heads. Someone's skulls are broken, others’ heads swollen, someone with congenital anomalies while the rest from accidents. The string that tied most of them was the fact they were always late, too late in fact. Very few reached the hospital in time. Sad, but true. It pained me to think of it.

Once I stepped out in the corridor, however, the pain subsided, only the memories remained. A fresh breeze greeted me at the mouth of the elevator. It wasn't operative, of course, so I took the stairs down to the first floor. But then I went up again. There was something else up there, towards the other exit that I must see.

I climbed up quickly and walked the entire corridor without noticing the emptiness. There was too much of it. A few birds tweeted in the courtyard below. I kept my pace and reached the exit. To my left were the stairs leading down to the X-RAY department. I stopped and looked carefully for something on the railing. The drawing was still there, with all its innocence and hope intact. For me, that drawing was probably the only happy memory associated with the place.

It was drawn years ago by a child. Nothing much, only a tree and a house. He had etched it with a nail on the railing and when I had asked him about the drawing he told me it was for his father.

I did not have the heart to click a picture of the drawing. It was more than a souvenir for me. So I touched it for the last time, hoping to etch it in my memory.

A sudden rattle somewhere got my attention. Stray dogs!

I climbed down the stairs. This part of the hospital had always been darker than the rest, and damper, a construction flaw maybe. Thick chunks of salt were scattered all over the floor. X-RAY films fluttered inside abandoned rooms. Some were stuck beneath broken tiles. I picked one of them and tried to study. Even though the weather had had its effect on the film, I could figure out the slit in the femur. It would take quite some time to heal. Other films were fluttering inside but I had not the time. Moreover, I was never interested in bones. Neuro was what fascinated me. Ironically, bones healed faster than brains.

I flicked the film away and climbed down yet another flight of stairs to the library, or what was left of it. It had never occurred to me before that silence too could be classified. The library was quieter than everything else out there. There was a different silence inside, one that gnaws at you. The empty shelves made no noise at all, not even when the rats jumped up and down them. A calendar hanging behind the front desk was still stuck in November despite the fact that time had moved on.

I stepped out of the library and saw that a rag-picker had lost his way perhaps. He was standing in front of the OPD. The sack on his back made him look smaller than he was. I called him but he ran out.

His absence made it even lonelier. I walked to the counter and looked at the chart. The dusty blackboard had the names of doctors, their respective departments and schedule. I searched for familiar names and found a few. Some consolation after all!

My phone beeped and dragged me to the present. It was still afternoon. Time seemed to go slowly in abandoned buildings. I lit one last cigarette and sat down in the open. The sun dangled over my head but I didn't care. Within a few weeks, this place would be brought down. The building, the newspapers said, was beyond repair and unsafe. I did not feel so. But then my feelings weren't always right.

I could have wandered more, visited more departments, recalled memories both good and bad, and gone out after signing my attendance like before but I did not do so. It wasn't required. I had had enough. The solitary tour of the abandoned hospital had stirred something in me. It had both moved me and made my thoughts stable. It had made and destroyed me at the same time. And there was nothing I could do. So I lay flat on the ground, doing nothing.