A Different World

When you exist in a place, going from day to day
Seeing, but not
Hearing, but not
It takes on the feeling of Musak
Just background without substance.

And so as I look out the window this evening,
In the distance I can see a glow of lights from something, maybe a town?
Six floors up is a unique perspective.

I am in a hospital bed this evening. I was admitted this day with discomfort in my chest. Can't call it pain, really. I wanted to ignore it and now some twelve hours later, I wish I had. The pain from the Nitro-patch is worse than the original experience. Eventually the nurse removes it and gives me pills to ease the headache.
I'm wearing a monitor hung from my neck, like an albatross, only not fuzzy. It doesn't hurt either. It just a reminder, beeping as it does.

The hospital is a strange place at night after the visitors have left. There are far away moans and coughs. Nearby rustlings of bed sheets, murmured questions, clicking of bottles, tubes and paraphernalia. Shoes squeak down the hall and the bing, bing, bing of the nurse's call button is heard in several places.

The blowing of the air conditioning, the grunting of the guy across the hall, backdrops all to the stream of recriminations in my mind. Why did you come here, it asks. You could have ignored it, it states. I'll never get to sleep, it nudges. Unfortunately, that last voice is right.

When I come home the next day, the sounds are there, the ones I hadn't been hearing lately. The birds at the bird feeder. The bubbling of the fish tank. Even the whine of the cat looking for dinner, all remind me I'm home. I like these noises better.