Figure of speech

(I figured I’d get some fiction as well out of my previously mentioned visit to Luster Sanatorium)

I’m looking out a window. I’m in a big, white, abandoned hospital, on the third floor. I look out and I can see that the view haven’t decayed one bit. The threes are still green, and out there I can see real live people walking around. But there’s no one in here. The contrast is alarming. I look back into the room. It’s so old and lost and forgotten. The paint is peeling like there is no tomorrow and it’s dying to be out of here. Even paint’s got places to be and stuff to see it seems. Whose thoughts live here, I wonder. If someone lost their mind in here then maybe it’s still around? It sure feels like someone just left, or like the house is alive with all the people who have gone.

I’ve heard that some people see funny things in funny places, and I want to see funny things too… I’m sure it can be done. Some people think that people who see funny things are funny too and that there is something wrong with them, but it’s not, and I know.

As I watch, the paint starts to move. Like little leaves or butterflies. It comes off the wall fluttering, flying. It looks like nothing else as my mind projects it. They’re heading for the door and for the window, out of here. They’ve heard it’s scheduled for demolition and they want out. They’ve fought themselves free slowly and now it’s time to fly. They might look small and helpless, but they’re light and they’re clever. The minds that were lost in here have not gone to waste. They may have been lucid enough to slip out of the noses and ears of their original owner, but they didn’t go particularly fare. They thought they had escaped, but nothing escapes the paint.

Outside, others have had the same idea. The tiles on the roof are working day and night to get to the edge in time. Though others have gone before them, no lessons are learned. Tiles are born revolutionaries and won’t crumble solely due to the failure of others. The bright visions of the future burns so strongly in them, that they probably couldn’t escape it if they wanted to. They’re more retarded but also quite a bit smarter then you, so they aim to go higher and further and faster than their shuddered friends on the ground, hoping that one day they’ll defeat gravity. It has to sleep sometime right? But there is no rest for the wicked it seems.

But are there no ghosts? Maybe they’ve split too? I wonder across the rotting floor while the paint still flutters around me and I step into the hallway again. To the right it ends in a window so my eyes are quickly pulled in the other, more worrisome direction. It’s darker that way. I stand there just looking for a second. I didn’t bring my glasses, but I could swear to god that I see something over there. Deep in the darkness, there is something just slightly darker. Is that my shadow? I have a quick look over my shoulder to assess the situation and decide that if the laws of physics still apply, it has to be something else. I knew there were ghosts in here! Suddenly excited, I start towards it. It pulls away from me and I follow it down the hallway. Sometimes it’s almost lost from sight, but I follow, too taken to turn back now.

By now the whole house is alive around me. Not of its own force though. My mind has filled in the gaps, connected the dots and redecorated the whole place, making it vivid and animated. You wouldn’t believe the splendor of it all!

"Reaching for the stars"