Beep
Click
Voices — strained to cheery
Rolling wheels — gurney, wheelchair
Doors open then close then open again
Medicinal soap
A peanut on the floor under the brochure table
Brochures about heart attack, stroke, visitor guidelines, a brief guide to involuntary hospitalization, AA
Footsteps
People coming and going, some hurried and frazzled. Others dragging and hurting
Meeting lawyers and doctors and liasons.
Sheriff deputies with cuffs and chains moving one patient back to inmate status.
Kindness and worry
Dread and prayer
Waves of angst and love and tears
Released girl dumps grandma who just drove 20 miles to pick her up— “I can walk” hahaha … the madness continues.
Walking outside to accompany those held against their will, a tall beautiful kind lady goes in and out the clicks and beeps to free another man or group for a few minutes of fresh air before they return to the dry indoor recirculated hospital air that carries voices and emotions and smells and germs,
Death and life roam the hallways deciding who stays and who goes.
A mom sits on the hard chair waiting to be called to the hearing designed to decide the near future of her most beloved baby, a man gone mad. Listening and waiting, pausing and anticipating.
Tissues wait to be filled with tears and a scrap of paper filled with snippets of phrases describing insanity and loss and pain and events that have led to this moment he will see as betrayal while she sees hope and help and healing.
Clarity. Future. Sanity.
©belindabotzong2018