Never the Same

Its never the same when you put it on paper. Even though the images are clear in my head, the black and white words just cant convey the feelings that they are meant to express.

It began with a reunion of sorts, I think it was like a family reunion, but there were also people from my work. Many of the Soldiers I had worked with were there, as were some family members. My wife, Sarah, was there as well - everyone was having a good time. The night was nearly over, and as I recall, we had had a good time.

As the evening drew to a close, we happened to find ourselves outside of a bar, or maybe a club, or maybe even a combination club, bar, pizza place. The music coming from it was loud and popular, instantly drawing our attention, even from the parking lot across the street. From the outside, it appeared as though there might have been strippers behind the frosted, hazed windows and the diffused yellow light seemed to illuminate their every smooth curve as they gyrated behind them. When strippers are that close, it's difficult to keep Soldiers away, especially after they've had a drink or two.

Imagine our disappointment when we entered the establishment to find it nearly deserted except for the one or two employees putting the chairs up on the tables, apparently ready to close up for the night. There was a bar, but there were no strippers. The illusion of strippers came from an set up in front of each window where mechanical devices, like robots, were dressed with flowing clothing to hide their otherwise sharp edges and angular frames. They appeared to dance when they were turned on and viewed from somewhere other than the side. From the bar, extra windows had been added inside to shield the patrons from the mechanations of the strippers. Each of the robot "strippers" even had a tip jar at the base of her window. After a few drinks, the illusion would be nearly complete.

Not willing to leave empty-handed, one of the Soldiers asked the manager to take a group photo of our weird reunion and she obliged - either to get us to leave, or just because she was a good person, who knows? While our photographer climbed up onto the bar to get a higher angle, we huddled our group together in the center of the main floor of the bar and looked up at the glassy eye of the camera. Too many things (I wouldn't call them thoughts because they were just images) flashed through my mind in the moments before the flash - the dead, unblinking eye of the camera, how the glow of the LCD eerily illuminated the face of the photographer like a ghost, that the music had died ushering in a stark, absolute silence, how each flash seemed to be the only light in the room, causing everyone to move in stutters in the darkness, to be illuminated soon after by the next flash - like a strobe. It just seemed to be bodies stuttering this way and that, smiles that became sneers in the dark and tattoos that came alive - menacing the watcher.

Eventually, the reunion must have broke up but the blinding flash bulbs in my mind seem to have wiped out whatever happened after them.

Then, I was standing outside, in the middle of small city. It was dark and raining, a slight chill rode the air. The buildings around seemed familiar and old. I had grown up in this city, and I think my mom may have worked in one of the nearby buildings. An empty fountain dominated in the center of the brick courtyard where I stood. It was getting on towards winter, and the fountain was empty. There were few people walking around, and they all seemed to hide in their long jackets or rain-coats. They weren't my concern either, and I'm sure I looked to hiding as well. I must have just gotten off the phone with my wife who was working late nearby (but I didn't know exactly where - except that she was warm and dry high up in her building, perhaps even overlooking the courtyard where I stood). It wasn't often she worked late, and I wasn't worried - we had just spoken on the phone and all was well. I had about an hour or so to kill.

An hour was not enough to go anywhere and do anything productive, besides, at 9 o'clock at night, there isn't much productive to do. I relegated myself to wandering the nearby area, exploring the urban environment and seeing where it would take me. I ventured to the back of the red brick courtyard toward a building I thought I might have been in before. As I approached the glass door which led to the entry-way, I was certain it would be locked - it was night after all. But, a small tug on the door and it swung open, the warmer air wafting out seemed somehow stale. As I stepped into the dimly lit entryway, I was overtaken by a sense of nostalgia - I had been here before, but I couldn't place when or why. In front of me stood the metal doors of an elevator and to my left, a narrow passage of stairs. I had a bad feeling about the elevator, so I started up the stairs, led by a sense of dark familiarity. The lights on the landing flickered as approached and passed under, but this too, seemed familiar. From the small landing, I could see down into the empty courtyard. The rain had picked up and puddles were forming. I continued up the stairs under the flickering lights.

At the top of the stairs was a set of double glass doors. Beyond them, a dimly lit hallway. Surely these doors would be locked. A slight cold draft gently pushed one door out towards me before the weight of the door became too much and it shut again. I stood there for a moment, feeling the pull to go in, but sensing a foreboding too. I looked through the glass to see what might be causing either feeling but recognized nothing. The doors led to an entryway beyond which a hallway ran away from me and then turned. Closed doors marred the smooth walls of the hallway - offices perhaps? Framed pictures hung in the hallway, and they seemed familiar. From outside the glass doors and from this far away, I couldn't make out any more than that they appeared to be of people, and they looked old. The ones I could see best were black and white, and seemed slightly out of focus. Curiosity got the best of me and when another draft pushed the door open towards me, I slid my fingers in to catch it before it could shut again.

Once inside the dark entryway, it felt colder. A window open somewhere could have been causing the draft and dropping the temperature - but it must have been a big window, because it was cold. I started down the hallway, wanting to examine the pictures more closely. I glanced at first few pictures, which were faded and yellow with age. The paper behind the glass was curing at the edges. I know the people in them looked familiar, but I couldn't place them.

I was startled when my phone rang, the loudness of it in the quiet was almost painful. I reached into my pocket and pulled the phone out, pulling out with it a cloth tape measure (where did that come from?). Momentarily, the trance of familiarity and foreboding was broken as I heard my wife's voice again. She would be off earlier than expected, perhaps a half hour.

"That's great, so I'll see you soon."

...

"No, it's fine, I'm just exploring whatever buildings are open."

...

"It's weird, these pictures are so familiar, but so old, where am I? What the? What is this? This is us - you and me - its so old..."

I had slipped back into the trance again. My hand fell away from my ear, as did the phone. I could hear my wife, talking, questioning, but so far away. I had been walking down the hall, talking on the phone, when I saw another familiar picture. It too was yellowed, and somewhat blurry, but the faces were undeniable - I was looking a picture of myself and my wife, taken at the bar. It couldn't have been THAT long ago, and how did it get here? The cloth tape measure had unraveled and was dragging on the floor behind me as I held the end in my hand with the phone. The picture of us was blurry and almost seemed to have a life of its own under the flickering fluorescents. Seriously unnerved at this point, I moved back towards the entryway to reexamine the other pictures. Now they were placeable too - all of the pictures in the hall seemed to be from that bar, and they all seemed to be of that renunion we had. But, the angles were wrong for having been taken by one camera. Some were close-ups, the wriggling tattoos, the strobes illuminating decomposed flesh, the mechanical strippers in the background peeling back their silky coverings and emerging from behind their frosted glass. Each picture seemed alive in the alternating dark and bright lights. My heart raced and I was on the edge of panic as I continued down the hall, remembering another exit at the end of the hallway. With the last corner in sight, I remembered my phone, I could hear my wife from a thousand miles away, and I could hear the panic in her voice. Had I been talking? What had I been saying?

I found myself looking at the ground, back down the hall, away from the last corner, was a piece of my cloth tape measure. I needed to gather it up, so I could put it back together. I walked back to it and picked it up. Then I saw another small yellow piece of tape, the 24" to 28" strip further away and I went to it too. As I picked it up, there was another, closer, but still I had to follow it. Somewhere deep in my mind, I knew I was being led - but by what and where to? And why did I NEED the pieces of the tape measure? I could hear my phone screaming at me - so far away, but so urgent - to get out, that I was scaring her, to forget the tape measure, to run, escape! Now! Something in her voice broke through the trace, the pictures, the smell of death was so close - for a moment I had control. I bolted towards the last corner, the exit. Bits of tape measure appeared on the floor in front of me - one after the other, they littered the floor, begging me to pick them up - just one more piece! Then another.

It was the screaming that stopped me from bending over to pick them up. It was in my head, it was in my phone, it was so close and so far away. The pictures flashed by and were talking to me, their lips moving without sound - or was it the lights. I ran, crashed around the corner, my feet kicking through piles of yellow tape measure, measurements flying ahead of me, behind me. The pictures were screaming soundlessly, the light buzzed ferociously. Finally I saw the exit door, and was grimly certain it WOULD be locked. In slow motion I ran, seeing the rain fall outside the glass, seeing the stairs slick wet with it. Thinking it wouldn't give, that I would be trapped, I hit the door without slowing down - and crashed through as the door swung easily open. I stumbled out onto the stairs, down the stairs, into the street. Then I started walking. My heart raced and when I glanced back, I saw the door I had just come through close gently on the quiet, dimly lit hallway. But the pictures still moved.

I put my hand back to my ear to speak into my phone, but it wasn't there. In my mind, I remembered setting it down on the pedestal, beside the picture of us. I turned again towards the door, and dreaded, feared and ached to go get my phone. I knew right where it was - down the hallway, on the ledge. And I started back.