Trembling With Fear 07/02/2017

Silver & White

The man didn’t want to be up here on these floors.  It was too noisy, too busy, too loud.  There were too many people, too many sensations.  He tried to tune it out, worked hard to keep his gaze firmly lowered as he pushed past the nurses in their trim, white uniforms.  He prayed they wouldn’t stop him, wouldn’t question him, and they didn’t.  They paid him no mind, just smiled and nodded as they wheeled the sick and decaying along faded linoleum on rattling, silver wheelchairs.

The elevators seemed to take an eternity to arrive.  The man could do nothing but wait, his heartbeat thundering in his ears like a distant, late summer storm.  It was during this eternity that he began to doubt himself, began to waiver.  Yet despite the strong urge to run, as soon as the elevator finally dinged its hollow sound and the silver doors slid open with a shake, the man stepped inside without hesitation.

It was the air.  That was the first thing he noticed upon exiting the elevator.  The air was sterile.  The smell of nothingness intermingled with an occasional whiff of ammonia or the sour stench of bleach.  It filled the hallway.  The man could almost feel it seeping into his pores, clinging to his clothes.  He hurried on, not looking back.

The door handle was cold to the touch, as was the door, and when he opened it, he was met with more of the icy chill, like a tangible manifestation of his own inner soul.

He examined his surroundings.  All was silver and white.  Polished metal cabinets lined the walls.  Trays with silver tools sat upon silver tables with clean white tablecloths draped about them.  The room was utterly dead, and the man knew all who dwelt within were dead as well.  As he turned to take in more of the still room, he was met with his own reflection in a thin silver mirror over a white porcelain sink.  It was a startling sliver of life in an otherwise lifeless setting.  He almost didn’t recognize himself and started suddenly at the image staring back at him.  He was thin and homely, with sunken in cheeks and eyebrows too bushy for his long, plain face.  He was wearing plain clothes, plain shoes, had a plain haircut…in fact, his entire being was screaming out in plain.  His manner suggested a shy, fragile man who probably had little contact with the outside world.  He had never had a girlfriend, or even a true friend for that matter.  He was the one picked on at school, the one always average but never above.  He was the person everyone looked at on the bus but never really noticed.  He was a tired, scared little man who had finally gone off the deep end but was afraid of drowning, and it showed in his every hesitant movement and gesture.

He maneuvered cautiously through the silver and white room, carefully winding his way around the metal tables until he arrived at the far wall.  This far wall was silver like the rest of the room.  Cold, metallic, lifeless, it had large drawers all along its face with numbers and letters scribbled above silver handles on pieces of white tape.  Trembling, the man reached out and grabbed one of the handles.  He gingerly pulled.  It slid open without a sound, and the man gasped.  The sudden intake of cold air made him cough, and as he coughed, he turned to see another man standing just a few yards away with another drawer from the long silver wall open in front of him.

As he turned, the other man turned as well, and their eyes locked.  Immediately, a sheepish, embarrassed look crossed both men’s faces.  Ashamed, they reacted as if they wanted to turn away, but some force seemed to hold them locked in a helpless, awkward stare.  The one was a fractured, mirror image of the other, as were the compulsions that led them both to this cold room in the dead of night.  Slowly and deliberately, both men pushed the drawers back into the long wall and stepped away.  Without a word, the stranger then quietly retreated into the shadows.  A moment later, a door creaked, and he was gone.

The remaining man stood rigid and still, breathing in the silence.  He looked down at his hands intently, held them in his gaze for a long moment, then reached over and picked up a silver tray from a nearby table.  He watched as his reflection distorted and cascaded, morphing into hideous caricatures.  Terrified, he dropped the tray, and for the first time in his adult life, unlocked the door hiding all of his innermost secrets, needs, desires, and emotions, screaming the scream of a dead man.