A Day of Passing

In the basement of a building, a man sat on the edge of a polished marble tub. His head was stirring, and his shoulders hung heavy as if the ceiling was sitting on him, and he had to clench what he had inside of him to hold himself up.  The contents within the marble crashed against its walls and left its spill on the other side. His back met the airy draft, starkly contrasting with the liquid's constant, soothing temperature. This slightly sobered his mind, and his pale and unblemished skin bore the signs of immersion—brainy fingertips and toes reminiscent of prolonged bath time.

 He caught himself straining on his throat. It was too dry even to push saliva down. Every swallow made no progress; each attempt was a struggle to quench the scratched drought within, and the thirsty well of hydration was empty. After several attempts, he could finally produce a pinky-nail-sized spit to soothe for a moment. His body, a hollowed husk, constantly told him that he should not even take his spit for granted. 

His once sun-touched hair, now grown to sit past his shoulders, hung in dark, damp tendrils that clung to his collarbone and shoulders. His fingernails were past due for a trim and were begging to be bitten down to the bone. His beard sat in the center of his chest, wet and unruly. 

With a gentle shake, he freed his hair, spraying a cascade of water droplets that refracted and reflected through the light from a warm lamp sitting in a lonely corner of the basement. With each ear, he bounced his head on its side and felt the warm water drain down his cheek. He tried to pry open his eyes but was greeted with a field of view lost in a depth of fuzz. He took his wet hands and massaged his eyes as if a good rub would heal his temporary blindness. 

Through the faint flutter of his eyelids, his vision started to become apparent.

 He looked down on his legs, with his hair dripping on the floor, and saw how thin and ghostly his legs looked. He opened his palms and gave it a look. Fleshy to the glance, he combed the hair on his wet legs to the side, feeling the sensations between his hands and legs. His knees quivered as he tried to stand up independently and wobbled to find balance. His knees buckled under the weight of skin and bone, and he slipped on the leftover spillage that puddled at his feet. His bony, protruding hip met the floor and sent a shiver of pain that felt new. 

As he was lying on the floor, he felt his skin being tugged and pulled from different parts of his body. 

His visual veil had been lifted, and he discovered a snaking bundle of wires and IVs that connected him to an unrecognizable machine that hummed and puffed to a mechanical rhythm. Pistons rose and fell with the same grace as the young man did. The beeping of a monitor became a painful metronome that ricocheted within the walls of his head. 

In a moment of uncertain panic, the young man started ripping out the wires and IVs that were embedded into his skin. 

 Frail fingers traced the chilly metal of an IV stand, and blood slipped down his arms and legs. He pried himself onto his feet as quickly as he could, and the young man's eyes grew wide as they journeyed along the mass web of wires.

Next to his tub, he saw a mask with a tube attached lying on the floor, and he gripped his chest and bit the inside of his cheek. The young man took his squeaky IV stand and started wheeling it across the basement with him as his feet dragged across the cold floor. As he was leaving a trail of wet steps, he felt the soles of his feet collect the leftover dust that carpeted the floor. He felt his skin stretch with his ribs as he breathed and walked his fingertips across the rivets. 

As he reached the basement steps, he tilted his head slowly as if an invisible rope pulled up his neck and saw that the staircase was spiraling. 

On the outside looking in, it seemed infinite. The ascent seemed to coil a moment of defeat within him by its exhausting appearance. It would be a burden to climb for a man whose frame bore the cruel testimony of malnourishment. With every step, the young man's breath wheezed through cracked lips, and he occasionally swallowed chunky flem that felt like pieces of unchewed food. 

The staircase was an unforgiving purgatory that made him worry that it would never end. His eyes hid behind a dark, sunken underbelly, wide with determination yet clouded by the fog of fatigue. He was fixated on the next step, and the clunk of the IV stand followed closely behind—each a dire commitment in his ascent to uncertainty. The walls on each side and the steps underneath were closing in and clashed in muted colors, and the gritty stone steps ate away at his naked feet with each step—embedding pieces of trim and loose rocks in the soles. 

As he climbed, the young man's hands grasped the railing, the skeletal fingers clutching at the cold iron. The staircase seemed to coil tighter as he questioned the purpose of why he was awake. 

As he finally reached the last step of the staircase, he was greeted by a wooden door with a rattly crystal glass doorknob. He wrapped his hands around the loose knob and turned it with a nervous feeling of not knowing what was on the other side. The door felt as if it was jammed, so he rattled it up and down. It wouldn't give, so he gave a desperate push with his shoulder and fell through it, with the door reverberating against the wall. The sounds of loitering birds flapping their wings swiftly vanished with a couple of stray feathers left behind. 

However,  he was thrilled that he finally reached the top and was even welcomed by a gust of wind brushing against his face. He sighed, closed his eyes, and lay on the floor in relief. 

 When he opened his eyes after a moment of rest, he found himself in a church, staring through a hole in the ceiling above him as he lay on his back. Two birds sat next to each other, chirping and hopping. The bird on the left would look to its east and west and flutter its wing while the other stayed stoically in place. The young man's eyes wandered and met the lush green ivy that suffocated the space inside the church by crawling up the walls and sporadically leaving patches of exposed stone in case anyone wanted to see. The leaves rustled with the draft that flowed through and settled back down. The hush of peacefulness was beautiful for a fleeting moment; then, it would be broken by the distant creaking of an old door, swaying on its crusty hinges—a subtle interruption from a world outside.  The silence was static, and the creaking door infringed on its harmony.

The claustrophobic colors of the basement have now turned into an open collection of charming hues from a church claimed by nature. Once polished by the faithful and needy, the stained glass spilled an array of warm pigments on aged wood that made it feel soft. The pews bore the patina scars of aging and neglect, and the altar, a broad, weathered slab of wood, held a collection of candles that once flickered the prayers from generations before. Creatures and bugs, perhaps no bigger than a faint whisper, scuttled along the smooth, tiled floor. Their movements were a delicate ballet, a practiced choreography orchestrated by the sacred ecosystem. 

Dust twirled and floated in the air that lofted a scent of musky dampness, and a chorus of tiny, echoing clicks and rustles filled the chamber, a choir of unseen members.

The young man pulled himself up to his feet with the help of his IV stand and felt a haunting sense of belonging in a place that felt so abandoned. Sweat went down his back, and he wasn't sure why. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his crutch, and his head hung low with his hair shielding his face. The pit in his stomach grew deep, and he looked up from the altar at the giant stained glass window painting the pews. The glass fragments, meticulously arranged, showed a man standing with a calming figure, cradling a fish as if it were his child. The piscine creature, rendered in hues of cobalt and aquamarine, seemed to lay calmly within the man's arms, its scales reflecting the many tones of blue. The robes adorned a richness of milky white, cascading in gentle folds that felt comforting to whoever wore them. His expression had an invitation of kindness and eyes that felt meaningful. Intense beams of light extended through the stained glass, casting prismatic patterns that fell on the floor.  

As the young man's eyes traced the light to the floor, he noticed a collection of abandoned IV stands by the entrance. He looked to his left, down the dark hole of the spiraled staircase, and looked back at the stained glass window. The birds in the void above chirped away their tune, and he moved one foot after the other and clenched his teeth with each step. Tiny bugs retreated into their homes underneath the pews as he moved forward. Some avoided the steps altogether, and some thought traveling up his leg would be better. The tiled floor felt warm to his naked feet this time, and the bugs tickled. 

Both hands held on tight to the stand as he hunched over. His head hung low, and his eyes watched his steps. His stand suddenly crashed into the congregation of others just like his own, and he stopped. A hot droplet of water crashed on the top of his foot, and he raised his head. His eyes frowned as they stung from the corner, and his lip quivered. He let go of his stand and started to walk through the blockade, pushing and rolling each one aside. 

As he pushed the crusty door open, it felt like he had escaped. The sunlight, now unbridled, coated his skin with a warmth that transcended the feeling of what he had experienced in the dark basement that he had departed from. His eyes adjusted to the brilliance of the outside world, and he found himself standing on the threshold of what felt like rebirth. Before him, an endless field unfurled into the horizon that seemed infinite. An ocean of emerald grass with waves swaying with wind. The breeze, a gentle conductor manipulating the movement that could not be predicted even if you controlled the wind, carried the waft of a distant shore. The sun lazily basked itself upon the field, making the hairs on the young man's arm stand tall. The sky was a rich indigo blue that seemed to carry on forever. The blue sky had met the green pasture in a perfect marriage and pressed their bodies together, chest to chest, in a romance that felt grander than the beating heart in his own. 

The young man carefully stepped off the church's steps and planted his feet into the delicate, bushy grass. The space between his toes was filled, and he even wiggled them to ensure it was not all in his head. Without a wince, water seeped from his eyes. He did not care to wipe, nor did he know why. 

He ran his fingers up his arm, and it reached his chest. With grace, it rose and slowly fell. He felt his cold fingers on his forehead, which had been an attractive spot for the sun, and felt its clammy sweat. The birds left their place in the hole in the ceiling and journeyed together off into the distance. Each bounced up and down, following each other like two kids skipping with interlocked hands, floating away into a world they only knew. The tiny ants who crawled up the young man's leg finally got their stop. They were far from home, but it didn't matter to them. The sun was setting, and it was time for everyone to return home.