The Night Before

I did not sleep that night, the hotel room was already taking on the chill ambience, smell, and sounds of an intensive care unit. Occasional distant laughter in a corridor where people are carefree, I pretend to laugh along but thoughts croak and tremble. I mean nothing to Cincinnati, the city has no memory of me yet, and If I die in its University Hospital I will still be a hole within a hole of a book never read. During the 4 a.m. G.P.S drive it rained a soft black rain as headlights plowed into the unknown. Back in the hotel room, I am still packing and unpacking while somnambulant eyes try not to see the looming Hospital entrance emerging from a gray faced dawn. The entrance is an electric mouth that withers. puckers and reflates. Beyond sliding doors, the day blanches white.