University of Virginia Library

Metal, Concrete

The walls and floor of this
corridor were concrete. It was so
dark it would have been difficult to
read anything. There were metal
doors that led into the patients
rooms; even the outside locks on
them looked worn. Inside the
rooms were beds and sometimes a
small dresser, sometimes a night
table.

It was quiet except for the
occasional shout of a woman. There
was the now familiar sight of
people sleeping on the benches that
lined the hall, except this time they
were women of all ages in gray
hospital gowns. On the corridor
walls were small, color photo
posters of pretty girls, puppies,
Americana in the form of a
mountain bordered by a lake.

As the nurse in charge spoke to
the group an old woman paced
back and forth between a drainage
opening in the floor and a door at
the end of the corridor. She would
go up to the door, peer through the
crack between it and the jamb, turn
around and walk to the opening,
then return to the door, very
slowly, very methodically. She was
still doing it when we left.