Welcoming Spring

Water slowly filled the deep footprints in the snow behind me as I trekked up a snowy hill in the early hours of the morning; I didn't like leaving a trail but there was no choice in the matter. The tail end of a late February storm moved sluggishly along the horizon and blocked out the rising sun, creating a layer of gray on gray. If one looked hard enough, the first signs of spring could be seen through the monochrome landscape, and if one was interested, a gaping black hole into a recently abandoned hospital. Climbing in, I stood in a long empty hallway for a moment and listened for anyone who might be inside. Greeted only by dripping and creaking, I quickly moved through the maze of passages into the dark heart of the complex.

This hospital consisted of a large, modern building that was barren of both architectural grace and even decay, having been abandoned in recent years. The lower floors were a white-walled maze of pitch black corridors leading into dead-end wings or looping back in rectangular patterns, all flanked by an endless array of empty rooms that stunk of disinfectant. What intrigued me was an old, decrepit building lying in the center of this network, almost completely hidden from street view. This was the original hospital building that had been expanded and extended over the course of 100 years, and subsequently engulfed by technology and progress, but also blandness. It wasn't very large, only a three-floor rectangular structure, but the decay was markedly different than the modern hospital which surrounded it - I could see paint peeling off in sheets and plaster crumbling from the ceiling from the small view on the street. The newer structures seemed to envelop and grow around the old building in layers, as a pearl forms under layers of an oyster's tissue when irritated by foreign matter. This core building was my destination today.

The two buildings were connected with a single narrow corridor; unfortunately the heavy door leading in looked to have been sealed for decades. I could see the passage through a small clouded window; a wonderland of decay lay ahead in the hazy shadows. This transition facinated me - the blending of the two worlds where the heat was shut off years ago. Finding the door locked fast, I took a trip down into the dripping basement to gain access. My flashlight scanned over a mess of pipes and conduit converging in the sloping basement passage, slick and shiny with condensate where it was warm enough to keep from freezing. From down here, the modern structure seemed more like an architectural parasite, feeding its tubes into the old hospital, gone cold years after the death of the host.

Sadly, the old hospital was renovated into administrative offices before it closed for good... however, a single room in the basement remained intact for the most part - the morgue.

But spring is a time to say farewell to all the barren and gray out there...