The Room

Crash.

The scratch and squeal of cold metal filled the icy air. Snow falls from a darkened sky and a harsh wind blows against skyscrapers towering over crowded streets.

A man scrambles out of a destroyed car half-stepping away from the accident. Paramedics arrived at the scene soon after; they managed to pull the vehicles apart and putting the other driver on a gurney, into an ambulance which immediately made its way to the hospital. Concerned, the man rapidly looks over his own body to see the damage he incurred. Miraculously, he sees nothing. Not a drop of blood.

The car the man had crawled from was absolutely demolished. The windshield had shattered and had fallen in on itself. The front end of the car was squished in as if it were made of cheap plastic, what was left of the engine smoked and sparked. Driver and passenger windows had also been broken with webs of chipped glass that prevented anyone from seeing into the car.

In what seemed like minutes, the man witnessed police come and clean up the pieces from the road. Onlookers went on their way after snapping photos of the accident. The man found it strange, none of the police officers bothered to come ask him what happened or to find out if he was alright. When the road was cleared of the debris and everyone had left, the night was quiet. Snow fell peacefully and the man was alone on the side road with a single streetlight looming over him. After waiting for a while, he decided to walk to the hospital that the other driver was hurried off to.

The walk was so quick, the man did not remember any of it. He abruptly stood at the entrance of the emergency room; it had rotating doors and a warm glow from the lights within. There were a few small Christmas trees with multicolored lights twinkling through the windows, green and red stockings hung from the reception desk. Taking one step in the direction of the door the man found himself inside, standing to the right of reception where there were two heavy steel doors, painted a pale whitish beige.

The man stops here trying to collect himself. Maybe he had gotten a concussion after all; he could not remember actually walking any distance from where he was previously standing. When he looked down to observe his shoes, he notices they aren’t wet or muddy. None of his clothing was so much as damp, which was strange because he wasn’t wearing a coat, nor did he have an umbrella. He turns and watches outside for a moment. It’s still snowing, quite heavily actually. If dwelling in the city had taught him anything it was that snow made a mess and you would get wet and dirty if you walked around longer than a few minutes.

Though he was overcome with confusion, the man remembers there was another driver who was brought to the hospital in critical condition. He had watched the paramedics remove her mangled body from her vehicle and load her into the ambulance. Taking a breath, the man pushed through the metal doors and stepped into a long, dimmed hallway. There were many rooms on each side of the hall, all but one had closed doors and unlit rooms.

A single room with an open door let a glow flood into the hall. Flickering lights from a TV played against the wall of the entrance.

Silence.

When the man stepped for the door, he found himself at the foot of her bed. She was on a respirator, eyes closed and arms resting at her side. Bruises and sutures covered her face and arms, one of her legs had been casted and raised. The TV was playing a news channel silently without subtitles. A heart monitor was the only noise in the room apart from the respirator, it beeped weakly and slow. Aside from the injuries, the woman appeared serene.

As he paused there, he noticed his vision becoming somewhat blurry. He thought his concussion may be getting poorer and it would be smart to find a nurse to tend to him. Before he thought to go back to the reception desk, he discovered himself in a waiting room alone.

The room was dull and ill-lit by a single lamp sitting on a short table. There were exactly seven chairs, paired by two, two and three. Not so much as a painting or a calendar displayed, the walls were barren. A coffee table lay bare at the very center of the room on a round, gray rug. The floors were white linoleum akin to the rest of the hospital, the walls a dreary khaki.

He took a seat nearest him, right next to the diminutive table and lamp. As his vision continued to diminish, he tried to stay calm. Looking for a nurse – or any person, really – the man began to feel like he was truly alone. Hours appeared to slip by unchecked. A window, which he didn’t notice when he arrived in the waiting room, showcased a snowy scene of a garden. Shrubs and trees were lightly peppered with the frozen flakes unhurriedly drifting down from a charcoal sky.

Hours.

They went by so lethargically yet so quickly. While sitting and waiting, the man noticed little changes taking place to the room. The floors started to become translucent and wispy like clouds in the springtime. Walls slowly fell away to reveal that the snow-white garden surrounded the waiting room and turned into a vast, verdant forest.

Days.

A desolate grandfather clock appeared in the place of the lamp and table below it. All of the chairs, save the one he sat in, withered away. The whiteout had come to be so dense that the bushes and trees looked like piles of snow. The man was so bewildered by where he was that he didn’t move about from his place in the chair. He didn’t feel discomfort or starvation or exhaustion. He didn’t feel much of anything.

Weeks.

When the man’s vision was virtually entirely lost and his surroundings looked as nothing but a sea of snow, he was visited. A strange figure cloaked in brilliant white approached the man, and when they spoke their voice was like rumbling thunder to the man who hadn’t heard anything for such a long period.

“Have you been waiting long?”

The man’s face appeared stunned. He toiled at first to find his words but ultimately managed to croak out, “I’ve been waiting for a nurse. I got into a car accident and no one has tended to me yet.”

“You won’t be needing to see any of them. It’s time for you to come with me.” The figure held their hand out to the man.

“I’m fairly certain I have a concussion,” the man insisted while reluctantly taking the figure’s hand and standing, “My vision has all but disappeared and the other driver was near death when I saw her.”

“My child,” the voice arose tenderly, “That life has fallen away from you now. You must move on to the next place.”

Silence followed the stranger’s statement while the man tried to make sense of the situation. Recollections flashed back in his mind of the night he was in a fatal car collision. For the first time in what felt like months, the man was distraught.

“You mean- I’ve died?” The man gazed up at the peculiar figure.

“Yes. It’s time to go now.”

The man nodded and said, “I’m ready.”

As the words left his mouth, the man’s vision wholly fell black and the glow that previously shrouded him and the waiting room dissipated.

Nothing.