By David August

Where do you go to find an enlightening truth that probably doesn’t exist? If you were Ralph Goodall at the age of thirty-five, you might set out one day with no destination in mind, check into a hotel in a city you’ve never been to, and lie on the bed staring at the ceiling, determined to solve the mysteries of existence or die trying.

By midnight, having uncovered no wisdom other than his inability to uncover anything else, Ralph was forced to realize two things in quick succession. First, he was still very much alive. Second, he was also very hungry, which was inconvenient since the hotel kitchen had stopped taking orders an hour earlier. 

Instead of trying to find a restaurant open this late at night, he settled for the snacks in the minibar. It contained nothing more than two small packages of salted peanuts and a bag of chips, which he wolfed down with a can of beer. He couldn’t sleep afterwards, and when he looked at himself in the mirror, his lower lip seemed twice as big as normal. His mouth started to tingle.

He went to the lobby where the receptionist was watching TV. “Good evening,” Ralph said, dizzy after coming down two flights of stairs. “I’m sorry, I feel a little sick. Is there a hospital around here?”

The young man looked at him with mild concern. “Uh, yeah, man, you look kinda pale. What are you feeling?”

“I ate the peanuts from the minibar,” Ralph said, then touched his earlobes, which were burning hot. “I’m having a little trouble breathing.”

“Peanuts?” echoed the other man. “I thought they got rid of them last year.” He checked himself and was back on point, “So, about that hospital, it’s super close. Just two blocks down the road, you can’t miss it.” After studying Ralph some more, he added, “You want me to call you a cab?”

Suddenly anxious to feel the cool night breeze on his face, Ralph said, “Two blocks, you said? No, I think I can walk it.”

“You sure?” the clerk asked, his eyes already back on the TV. Ralph nodded and left, eager to be outside.

The night was cold and he didn’t have his jacket, but the chill on his skin was a blessing. He found it easier to breathe as he walked the first block, and only the tingling in his tongue kept him from turning back. The relief was short-lived, however, and by the time he reached the building with the big red cross on the front, he was breaking out in a cold sweat.

He sat on a bench outside the hospital and waited for the wave of discomfort to pass. All the while he could hear voices inside, once over the loudspeaker, but no one entered or left the building. When he began to feel better, he picked himself up and stepped through the sliding door.

The ER waiting room was empty, with no patients or staff, so he decided to sit again until the attendant returned. He could still hear people talking nearby, though he couldn’t make out the exact words. He assumed it was coming from the next room, labeled “Triage Nurse,” since the door leading deeper into the hospital was closed.

After five minutes of waiting and no one showing up, Ralph became impatient. He called out, “Hello?” and got no answer. He finally went to the triage room to ask for help and was surprised to find it empty. There was a murmur in the background, but it was faint, perhaps from an adjacent room. This was puzzling because there were no other doors, and he was sure that no one had come out.

As he searched for air ducts that might explain the noise, he heard hurried footsteps behind him. He spun around and looked back at the waiting room. Again, no one was in sight, but now there was the sound of wheels turning, like those of a gurney. It came and went in the blink of an eye, the source nowhere to be seen. Ralph felt a shiver run down his spine even before the automatic door to the hallway opened by itself.

On any other night, he might have left at this point, gone back to the hotel, waited outside the hospital until someone else showed up. On this night, however, with his heart aligned with the urge to grasp something, anything, beyond the ordinary, he reluctantly pressed on, following the sound of the unseen wheels.

There were footsteps all around him, people talking, some urgent, some languid, and machines humming and beeping, the sounds you’d expect to hear in a busy hospital. Only there was no one around. Though the lights were on, the beds were all empty, the nursing stations deserted. 

Ralph shouted several times, “Hello? Where are you?” to no avail. Clearly none of the voices could hear him, and when he tried to locate their exact source, they just drifted away. He could half discern what they were saying, someone calling for a doctor, a boy talking to his mother, though he caught the emotion conveyed more than the actual words.

After walking through most of the hospital and finding no one, he didn’t know what else to do. He was sure that there was something important going on that he should try to understand, but as the minutes ticked by, no flash of insight came. He was out of sync with the people in the hospital, that much was clear, or maybe it was they who were out of sync with the world at large, but what did that mean? Try as he might, he couldn’t tell. It was like staring at the ceiling all over again, only ten times more frustrating.

Without planning, he found his way back to the waiting room. It was quieter than before, and to compensate for the eerie atmosphere, he began to whistle. It took him a few seconds to realize where his mind was going, but eventually he recognized the tune he was struggling with. It was “Hotel California,” and the creeping thought of not being able to leave the hospital gave him butterflies in his stomach. He ran to the door and, with more bathos than release, managed to get out unhindered.

He stopped at the curb at the sound of laughter, not from behind him, but from across the street. Two men, obviously drunk, were staggering along the opposite sidewalk, shouting and cursing at each other. A motorcycle came by at top speed and honked at them, setting off the barking of a couple of dogs.

The night was chillier than ever. Ralph glanced at his watch and it was earlier than he had imagined, not quite one o’clock yet. When he looked back at the hospital, nothing had changed, there was still not a soul to be seen. Dispirited, he made his way to the hotel, his allergies over or simply forgotten. 

The next morning, after checking out of the hotel, Ralph parked his car near the hospital and walked over for a last look. He didn’t know what he was hoping for, but even from a distance he could see people coming and going. An ambulance pulled out of the garage, sirens wailing, and he had to run out of the way. He crept cautiously into the waiting room, as if expecting the building to swallow him up at any moment.

Most of the seats were now taken, and at least two disgruntled patients, including a man with a nasty bruise on his head, were yelling at the lone attendant manning the front desk. A security guard stood motionless off to the side, blocking the path to the restricted area.

Barely aware of what he was doing, Ralph wandered around the room, taking in all the faces and sounds. Voices came from every direction, loud and soft, punctuated by the occasional announcement over the loudspeakers.

As he moved from wall to wall, no one paid him any attention. They were too wrapped up in their own aches and troubles to notice another stranger. He began to think, only half-jokingly, that the tables had turned and he was now the invisible one.

When he got to the entrance of the treatment area to inspect the rest of the hospital, the guard at the door barked at him, “Hey, where do you think you’re going? You have to wait in line like everyone else.”

Ralph was mumbling his apologies when he heard a new sound over the chatter. He scanned the room, but couldn’t find what he was looking for, even though it seemed to be coming his way. In an urgent tone, he asked the bewildered guard, “Listen! Do you hear that? Is that a gurney?”

*    *     *

David August lives in São Paulo, Brazil, and works in human rights advocacy. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in 3:AM Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, and LatineLit, among others.