Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Angel Story (3)

When I was eleven-years-old my family lived on the old Fort Logan Army Base but by the time we moved there is was a mental hospital. My father worked in the Power Plant and we lived in what was once a major's house on the southwest end of the parade grounds. The hospital sat at the east end of the parade grounds on the main road into the facility. The hospital did not interest me for the longest time because my brother, sister, and I had the many older buildings on the grounds to explore. We managed to get inside quite a few of the empty buildings including the old nurse's dormitory and the house next door to us. We knew we had to see that one after we found out there was a ballroom on the third floor.

Then one day my attention turned to the hospital. I don't know why, it wasn't that interesting, just a bland, boring, collection of shoe boxes attached end-to-end. The main entrance opened into the middle of a long hallway. When I went in the hallway seemed kind of creepy because there was not one person in sight and the building seemed abnormally quiet. I stood just inside the door wondering which way to go next; left, right, or back out the door. I chose right.

The end of the main hallway connected at a right angle to another hallway and when I reached that hallway I turned down it. As I made the turn I looked back down the main hallway and saw another girl, looking back at me, turning down the connecting hallway at the other end of the main hallway. I stopped and took a step back into the main hallway and as I did the other little girl stopped and took a step back into the main hallway. We stood sideways to each other and looked at each other over our respective shoulders. I was confused because the little girl looked like me. I thought maybe I was looking into a mirror so I turned to face the little girl and at the same time the little girl turned to face me. I started walking back down the hall and at the same moment the other little girl started walking toward me. I took another five steps forward and stopped. The other little girl took five steps forward at the same time I did and stopped at the same time I stopped.

We stood there looking at each other and again I wondered if she was me but at the same time I was sure I wasn't looking into a mirror. Even though she looked like me and even though she was wearing a short sleeve blouse, shorts, and sneakers like me her clothes were slightly different from mine. I was just getting ready to take another step forward when the other little girl turned around and started walking back up the hallway and then disappeared around the corner. For some reason this frightened me more than anything that had happened before and I quickly walked to the entrance door and out of the building. When I got outside I started running and did not stop until I was halfway home.

Years later I went back to Fort Logan and walked around the grounds just to see how much of it had changed since I had lived there and I found myself in front of the hospital. The entrance looked just the same as it did when I was a child so I decided to go inside and walked through the door and into the main hallway. I looked to my right and saw the connecting hallway just as I remembered it. When I looked to the left I felt my brain tip forward and then backward. There was no hallway. There was a wall about five feet to left of the door. A solid wall that looked like it had been there since the rest of the building had been put up.

That day has stayed with me and I still wonder about it.

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