Permanent

      The air is thin, cold; even though the power went out, it seems as if the air conditioning was boosted to its maximum. My nose runs fluids, I feel sick, although the feeling becomes more mental than physical, but no tears come from my eyes, no over raged moments of anger spur out, no listening to U2 as I mumble the words into my pillow. I feel sick, because my head throbs and my body feels heavy on me, this pain of emptiness of no tomorrow just keeps pushing me down, it feels endless, and so I wait in the stairs of this hotel. The power is out; I’m looked in the stair way, no light except for that of emergency that keeps flashing on and off, red.

            In my hands I hold a flash light that I found in a box labeled, “Emergency use only,” well the idiots that were suppose to replace the batteries didn’t show up for work that day. But I managed to occupy myself on clicking on and off over and over again. Anything is helpful to keep my mind off what was probably happening in this hotel before I got locked in this passage.  Today next week I was suppose to get married, why that was, well because I’m almost completely certain that somewhere in the second floor is my fiancé, and she’s not alone.

            Only I get stuck with these types of women. If they want to have sex with every single guy that smiles at them or complements their eyes, its fine, just don’t say yes to the moron who just proposed to you six month prior to this day—thinking that you love him.  What type of sick person would make you fall in love with them and seven days before d- day, she smashes you down making you look like a fool, making me look like a fool. I feel not anger towards them but sadness for they are the ones who will live with the thoughts of what could have been or even some will face higher powers. In the end, sadness is the only word that comes to mind.

            Today might as well mark the end of my life, for only three things mattered and in a time frame of hours they were all taken, my job, my supposed future wife, and my dog got hit by a car, she was a golden retriever who’s been with me ten years, shock is a word I learned the first few years of med-school before I dropped out, if anything describes it better is me.

            The echoed sound of metal disturbs my thinking. I stand. Look up the stair and place my ear to my highest point.  Again, this time a faint voice fallowed it, curiosity and a sense of adventure over took me and I decided to go check it out. If this were some type of horror movie there would probably be a big, angry, man-eating monster awaiting me, unfortunately this is reality.

            Each step I got closer I, thought of all the possible things that might be making such a noise from a broken pipe, or a damsel in distress that utterly needs the help of a hero to save her from, well I haven’t made up a monster yet, I just wouldn’t like to face a dragon just because I’m trapped in a stairway where all the surrounding walls are made of cardboard, anyways. To my surprise I finally reached the top, this is after going up for like an endless half an hour, in front of me is a man well dressed, chubby looking, bald, and depressed, like a fatter version of myself and without any hair.

              “Are you alright?” of course I, the concerned and helpful pear have to give in, and asked.

            He looks up, his eyes small and red, like if he would’ve poured lemon on them, “do you think everything happens for a reason?”

            I hate when people answer my question with another question, “In a way I do but then if that were true then who ever picked out my future must have been pretty pissed off at the time.”

            “I know what you mean my life has been a disaster ever since my first divorce.”

            “How many times where you married,” I said trying to compare whose life is more depressing.

            “Three, and the first and my last where the same women she actually convinced me that she loved me and that she never stopped loving me then exactly a year later she leaves me has sex with her lawyer and takes all of my money, leaving me fat, broke and unemployed,” he said sobbing and sucking up his mucus.

            I couldn’t say anything because in comparison he definitely had a much more intense down fall than me.

            “You know, if I could do it all over again I would have tried harder to make it work,” pause, “and even if it didn’t I would have still had a smile, maybe that way I wouldn’t have ended up stuck in this place,” the man said getting to his feet and sitting down in the stairs.

            “Why this place?” I had to ask, come on like if no one else would have done it.

            “Because this is where I actually meet my true love, my high school sweat heart, before I had made all that money, back when the material was just material and she, well, made up the best moments of my life,” he said dazing away into the red flashing light.

            “I too thought I was in love, and now all I can think about is, how I’m going to make it through tomorrow, next week, this afternoon, when I have tasted happiness, tasted real beauty, but in seconds they were all taken, how can I do it? How can I keep going?” I asked seeing how we weren’t going anywhere any time soon so might as well lay our hearts on the table.

            “I too asked myself that question, I came up with my own answer, and I’m telling you that nor I or anybody else can help you solve such a burden, but I can tell you that once you quit the done is done there’s no going back, but trying well trying will eventually get you something in return even if it’s a fraction of happiness you will receive it with open arms,” the man said getting to his feet and walking down the stairs, I fallowed.

            “I know what you mean but this feeling is not like those of before where I sat, wrote some poetry, watched Oprah, and ate ice cream for a week until the feeling went away, this time it actually feels permanent,” I said thinking hard on my past.

            “I know something’s might seem permanent, and others might be permanent, but in the end it all comes down to how you accepted it,” he stopped, “It was nice meeting you but I think having our little conversation will not help our cause as much as we wish it did, so I suggest you stay here and keep on trying to get through to someone on the other side, I’m going to go downstairs and check out if at least that door is open,” he said walking down, hands in his pockets and head between his shoulders.

            Most of what he said, I was able to comprehend but trying and trying just felt like a useless cycle in my life. But I still knocked on the door and once in a while I shouted, “I’m in here someone open the door!” no reply of course time passed, even the thought of this being a prison crossed my mind, not pleasant at all.

            My white knuckles sore from banging against the metal door and the flashlight became heavier to the point I just dropped it on the ground, and like if magic the second it touched the ground it exploded but with it the hotel power came back on and the security bars that where sealing the doors opened, and I could finally hear someone on the other side.

            The feeling of being free compelled me, I now also feel compassion toward birds and from now on I’m going to open the cage and let them loose whenever I see one. A woman with a shirt that said security under her named tag opened the door, I could have kissed her but the thought of going back to the dump of a life I have, ruined any moment of celebration.

            “Are you alright?” she said sounding concerned it gave me a déjà-vu because those were the exact words I used with the man in the stairs, which I never got to ask his name.

            “Yeah I’m fine, but what happened? One minute I’m going up the stairs and then everything goes dark then red, and then the door shut,” I said summarizing what had happened.

            “We had an accident,” she paused, “Someone decided to take their life and they jumped from the roof directly on the electrical plant of the hotel.”

            “What? That sucks,” I gave it a moment of silence, “Oh! and there was another guy in there with me well he went down stairs,” I said finally telling her, ever since med-school I had a fascination for bodies and drugs, just that the school took too long and I had to start getting on with my life.

            “Don’t worry about him, we have security on every floor checking all of the stairs,” she said walking faster than me and talking to a man who also had security written on his shirt.

            I left her side, and like a curious little kid went to see the combustion outside. There was people all gathered around the “do not cross” cable, and about ten cops cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck, they all tried to contain the scene. The air had a scent from burned skin that just sent chills down my body. My bones shivered as I got closer. The body is mostly destroyed from impact and burned wounds. Its flesh distorted. The closer I got the worse the smell.

            “Excuse me sir, where did you say that man was, the one that was with you in the stairs,” the security woman had caught up to me and asked confused.

            I thought I told her but some people just don’t listen sometimes, “Downstairs,” I said turning back to examine the body.

            “Sir we have searched every where, the stairs are empty you where the only one inside,” her voice—the image they collided.

            My heart seemed to had stopped, air could not get in to my lungs—the paramedics grabbed me before my legs weakened, I couldn’t understand. I can’t understand. I just saw this man. I talked to this man.













"Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." Phil Donahue