2007-02-22
The Man and Woman in the Chapel
A little over a week ago, I was at the hospital visiting my aunt who had been warded at the prospects of having a premature delivery. But in spite of the slight complications in pregnancy, we were, decidedly, a cheerful company - because for the first time in a long, long while, we knew that we weren't going to be faced with a ward full of dying and diseased, and our warded relative didn't have a fate that gave gambling certainty. This time, we were going to receive the first signs from a little person that would soon be family.
So we walked in through the automatic glass gates, appreciating the warm peach walls and the clean smell of disinfectant that assured us that both mother and child would be protected from germs. A large poster boasting world-class care for maternity patients, embossed with a pot of herbal soup welcomed us, and little figurines of saints looked down upon us kindly - and I swear, sympathetically too, as my mother decided to re-tell for the 2 millionth time, in a carrying voice, how Charmaine the first born was a bridge baby that caused her an infinite amount of pain and trauma and a lifetime doomed to caesarian births. A story, I assure you, that is told every 26th of April - that fateful day, Mother's day, and every time we step within a 5 kilometer radius of any hospital.
I was, as usual, highly amused at how my siblings - after all these years, were still drinking in every phrase ("and then! She wouldn’t turn around!"), hanging on every single word she said ("so the doctor said he needed to cut open my stomach to take your sister out...") and finally, loving every bit of the resolution - ("which meant that you two couldn't be born through natural births either") to which the vultures always punctuated with accusatory stares at me, as though I had robbed the two of them of what would have been the most glorious moment of their lives. As they indulged, I wandered a little and stumbled upon the hospital chapel.
From the small square of clear glass set in the door, it looked exactly like a chapel. A dark room with the brightest windows one had ever seen - whose holy radiance never seemed to light up the room, and a soft brown atmosphere that always made me hold my breath and tongue. If the hospital was a hive of alertness, then this chapel was where everything slept. Yet it would have been so easy for one to slip through the impersonal administration of the hospital, or the carelessness of a nurse, but it felt like no matter how quiet and obscure you tried to be in the chapel, a pair of hidden eyes would always be watching you. Always.
The chapel was empty except for two people: a man and a woman who sat on successive benches, unspeaking.
The crucifix in front of them wept, but they were still. The room was still.
Did they know each other? Which bed upstairs did their prayers wrap themselves around? Were these prayers in joy, or in fear? Were they working?
All at once, my reflection cut between the chapel and myself and the sharp smell of disinfectant swerved in - vestiges of the ongoing battle against death. I was reminded of the morgue, that urban legends informed lay underneath my feet, and the tens above who struggled to make sure they didn’t end up there. The piercing smell was suffocating.
My mother called, as the family was herded into the lift, returning to our journey where an almost little person would greet us at the end of it.
I never saw their faces - that man and woman. And I wonder how long it will be until I forget them, like with everything else.
nothing ever happens at 11:07 p.m.