The coldness from the outside air was replaced with the warmth from my burning hate of the hospital’s white walls. They tried to make it out to be a good place even though it was a harbinger of death and sadness. Even with the smooth jazz playing in the background I was in Hell; and at room number 219, Satan was waiting for me.

I wasn’t in the hospital for long before the smell of bleach and old people was making me sick. It was hard to describe, like a smell that, when it hit, you just wanted to turn tail and run. It made my nose cringe and my stomach turn. I didn’t want to be there. I was forced to be there. I hated everything about the place and I just wanted to be home. I just wanted to sleep and never again have to see the man waiting for me.

“Third floor, right?” My brother hit the button to call down the elevator.

“Yup.” My mother looked around the room we were in. I don’t know why, maybe just to give her something to do. She had been there for the past few days. Same place. Same time. Yet, she was happy somehow; I hadn’t been in that place for five minutes and I wanted to burn it down.
The elevator opened and inside nothing filled it; nothing more than the velvet-looking red walls and dark wood paneling. I hated the elevator; not just because it was in a hospital, but because I hated the damn feeling that it gave me on the way up. That feeling of my stomach rising and then falling. Just one more thing to make me want to be at home.

“So how is he feeling?” My brother stepped out onto the ugly designed carpet, its pattern made me want to throw up; but that could’ve just been the elevator. Even the room around us was ugly. More white walls to fill my mind, and more hospital equipment to fill the halls. You’d think they would clean up the place a bit.

“Fine, I think. As fine as he can be right now.” My mom stepped out too. She walked to the large wooden doors at the end of the hall and opened them.

“Well, thats good.”

I wish I could say that too. I wish that I could tell myself that I wanted him to be fine. Truth be told, I wanted that man dead more than anyone on the damn planet. The pain that he caused me, and even some loved ones, he deserved to die.

That’s what I thought at least.

We got to the area where the patients stay, some of the doors to the rooms were open. I could see the men and women inside; most of them were old, but most of them happy. How could someone be happy in this place? It was hell, and for someone in one of those rooms, Satan was behind each door waiting for them. Just like me.

“Here he is.” My mom opened the door, and there he was. My father laid on his bed without even a glance to the people who had walked in. He probably thought we were just another nurse here to take blood or put a tube somewhere else, if that was even possible.

“Hey, Dad.” My brother and I both said. I tried to sound happy to see him but I was somber. I wasn’t mad anymore, just, depressed. It made me sorry to see my father like this; when just a minute ago, I was wishing death upon the man. I didn’t think I was in Hell anymore, I was in Purgatory. Forever lost in nothingness and emptiness.

“Hey guys, I’m glad to see you two.” It didn’t even sound like my father. He was weak, winded. This person that I used to know as a strong man who could do anything was reduced to almost nothing.

“How’re you doing?” He was terrible.

“I’ve been better.” He smiled at the end and went back to watching what was on the T.V., some crappy horror movie on Sci-Fy, just like he always did.

The area around him was full of styrofoam cups, some full, and some empty. What space wasn’t taken up was full of junk food that look liked it was only opened. Then I noticed my dad’s body.

He was nothing more than skin and bone. I mean that. What he did have was taken away by whatever was nearly killing him at this point. That turned out to be kidney failure and prostate cancer. What I’d been told was nothing compared to the state that his body was actually in. His arms had become sticks from what were once muscle filled arms. His gut that used to be full of whiskey and good cooking was now flat and almost lumpy. My dad looked dead. I mean, he might as well have been.

“Damn straight you’ve been better.” Did I say that? No, it was my mother of all people. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was pissed.

“Hey, I know I messed up, I think that we all know that.” There is something I thought I would never hear in a million years. My father was saying that he had screwed up.

Just when I was warming up to say something to him it seemed like my brother needed to get home, and so did I. I didn’t want to go; I wanted to stay here forever and just talk to my Dad. Get to know him as a person, and not just a Father figure. I didn’t get that and I don’t think I will, at least not for a few years.
“I love you, Dad.” I wanted to hug him but due to all the wires and tubes it wasn’t worth the effort. I held his hand firm instead and looked at him in the eye one last time. I was leaving Heaven, and for some reason I was forced to go back to Earth
“I love you too, T.”