Gone But Not Forgotten

If you have never had a reason to hang around a hospital after hours, I highly recommend the experience, especially if there is an abandoned hospital wing. Wheelchairs and gurneys discarded haphazardly in shadowy hallways. Hospital debris scattered about as rooms which once housed the sick and wounded stand dormant, husks of their former selves. Paper-cluttered nursing stations stoically waiting for humans to return, yearning for usefulness. And above it all are the noises, creaks and echoes slicing the deafening silence broken by the oppressive subtle hum as if so many souls experiencing the greatest joy or desperate tragedy left remnants behind long after the last orderly turned out the lights. I tarry a few extra minutes before responding to my incessant pager. Like so many of the forlorn and forgotten, perhaps all these shades roaming these halls are waiting for is someone to take the time to listen.