LISTEN!!

Have you ever listened SO hard sat in the thick, sterile silence of a hospital corridor, in the middle of the night that you thought nothing else existed outside of your head? Then you hear those dreaded footsteps, tip tapping out of the blackness, getting gradually closer, louder, until you think your head will burst, and you listen harder than you thought it was possible to do. So hard it’s actually painful, and, as those footsteps tip tap and disappear into the blackness of the ward, the relief that they aren't coming to you, folds you back into antiseptic, impenetrable silence and the listening begins all over again. Until the next time!!!

The dawn light eventually brings some relief. Things don’t seem as bad in the light of day; the silence doesn’t seem so solid. You convince yourself that things aren’t so bad. No news is good news they say, don’t they? Funny how that thought offers some comfort in the daylight. In the oily blackness of the night no news is the enemy brought out of the silence by that damned nurse’s clicking heels. If only they would stop and tell me what was going on, I wouldn’t have to listen so hard. As night time approaches, the distracting and comfortable hustle and bustle of the hospital's daily routine is slowly replaced once again by a familiar, all enveloping silence. A silence that I am beginning to think belongs to me, is a part of me. It fills my head like a screaming darkness; I listen so hard I think I must be going deaf. I find myself waiting for those damn, echoing footsteps to start. Maybe tonight’s the night they will bring some news, or maybe they’ll just echo their way back into silence once again.

© By: - Pete Slater.   2011.

Not a poem but a short thought on an event which happened a long time ago. My life changed forever.