Traveling Without Moving
On the eighth floor of a hospital in Brooklyn, by the western window, a man is sitting in a wheelchair. The sun grazes the linoleum floor. The ward is quiet. The man is silent.
He is Lou, and he has lived in this hospital for many years. He is more familiar than many doctors and nurses. The orderlies feel quite comfortable with Lou, because Lou is more like a piece of furniture than a patient. He is rigid and faint; he does not speak. No visitors come to see Lou. He is easily moved from corner to corner, and he is very compliant because he cannot speak.
Lou has a bath once a week, given by a pretty nurse. He shows no signs of excitement during bath time, even though the nurse is buxom and fair. After his bath, Lou is shaven by the nurse, and she combs his hair in a sanctimonious manner. She puts aftershave on Lou’s neck.
Lou is in a psych ward because the doctors cannot figure out what else to do with him. Lou is not crazy, but he is not normal, either. A stream of specialists have come in to work on Lou, hoping to have a revelation, or discover some new neurological disorder to name, or simply get to the bottom of the problem of Lou. Unfortunately, none of these specialists get very far with Lou, and grow frustrated, and take their specialties to other patients. A battery of medications has been forced on Lou in the past, but he does not respond to the drugs, so now, Lou is only dosed with blood pressure medicine and a mild sedative. The sedative is to ensure ‘appropriate reactions’. This is fancy medical speak for ‘keeping him quiet in case he gets loud’. Getting loud is not what Lou does, and the doctors are foolish to waste the sedative on Lou.
In other hospitals, on other psych wards, there are many people like Lou. They have been forgotten, even while still in the same room with others. They are shadow-like; somehow, they disappear into the walls of the room. There are many, many people like Lou all over the world.
In ancient times, Lou may have been regarded as a spiritual master—a man so still in thought and meditation that he rejects the world and its noise. He might have been called a priest or a monk. But it is not long ago; it is 2005, and Lou is merely considered statuesque. Lou is catatonic; doctors would reject any claim of spiritual meditation. Lou is not a Zen master; he is just an old piece of human furniture.
So he sits by the same window (because he is pushed there by a nurse) and he seems to stare out into the sunlight. This is what Lou does until he dies.
Lou dies in his wheelchair; he was sitting for eight hours until the shift nurse realizes he is there. It is only when she takes his pulse for checks does she realize Lou is cold and rigid and deceased. The shift nurse feels very sad for Lou and very relieved that Lou is not her father, or herself. The shift nurse calls the proper numbers and doctors come to ascertain that Lou is dead. When he is pronounced dead, orderlies move him to a stretcher and he is pushed down to the morgue. The morgue finds his cause of death as heart failure. The morgue embalms Lou, since he has no known family, and arranges to have Lou buried in the small cemetery next to the hospital, for the poor souls who are without family. Lou is very properly and formally dead.
When Lou opens his eyes from beyond the grave, he is quite relieved to have his faculties of communication back. Others understand him, and bounce around him in balls of light. Lou enters the darkness of space in a quiet manner. He feels joyful and content. There is, after all, something after death, and that Something is a great collision of nameless souls, of which Lou is one. So now Lou doesn’t really have an identity, much like in life, and he doesn’t have any concerns, much unlike life, and he is very, very glad to be with Others.
Lou asks the Others, in a transcendent way, of course, “Why?”
And the Others reply, in a transcendent way, “Why not?”
And Lou is content with this answer, and realizes that for his entire measured human life, he had been traveling without moving, and in death, he is continuing his journey. Lou thinks: “What a relief. What a grand, great relief.”
He is Lou, and he has lived in this hospital for many years. He is more familiar than many doctors and nurses. The orderlies feel quite comfortable with Lou, because Lou is more like a piece of furniture than a patient. He is rigid and faint; he does not speak. No visitors come to see Lou. He is easily moved from corner to corner, and he is very compliant because he cannot speak.
Lou has a bath once a week, given by a pretty nurse. He shows no signs of excitement during bath time, even though the nurse is buxom and fair. After his bath, Lou is shaven by the nurse, and she combs his hair in a sanctimonious manner. She puts aftershave on Lou’s neck.
Lou is in a psych ward because the doctors cannot figure out what else to do with him. Lou is not crazy, but he is not normal, either. A stream of specialists have come in to work on Lou, hoping to have a revelation, or discover some new neurological disorder to name, or simply get to the bottom of the problem of Lou. Unfortunately, none of these specialists get very far with Lou, and grow frustrated, and take their specialties to other patients. A battery of medications has been forced on Lou in the past, but he does not respond to the drugs, so now, Lou is only dosed with blood pressure medicine and a mild sedative. The sedative is to ensure ‘appropriate reactions’. This is fancy medical speak for ‘keeping him quiet in case he gets loud’. Getting loud is not what Lou does, and the doctors are foolish to waste the sedative on Lou.
In other hospitals, on other psych wards, there are many people like Lou. They have been forgotten, even while still in the same room with others. They are shadow-like; somehow, they disappear into the walls of the room. There are many, many people like Lou all over the world.
In ancient times, Lou may have been regarded as a spiritual master—a man so still in thought and meditation that he rejects the world and its noise. He might have been called a priest or a monk. But it is not long ago; it is 2005, and Lou is merely considered statuesque. Lou is catatonic; doctors would reject any claim of spiritual meditation. Lou is not a Zen master; he is just an old piece of human furniture.
So he sits by the same window (because he is pushed there by a nurse) and he seems to stare out into the sunlight. This is what Lou does until he dies.
Lou dies in his wheelchair; he was sitting for eight hours until the shift nurse realizes he is there. It is only when she takes his pulse for checks does she realize Lou is cold and rigid and deceased. The shift nurse feels very sad for Lou and very relieved that Lou is not her father, or herself. The shift nurse calls the proper numbers and doctors come to ascertain that Lou is dead. When he is pronounced dead, orderlies move him to a stretcher and he is pushed down to the morgue. The morgue finds his cause of death as heart failure. The morgue embalms Lou, since he has no known family, and arranges to have Lou buried in the small cemetery next to the hospital, for the poor souls who are without family. Lou is very properly and formally dead.
When Lou opens his eyes from beyond the grave, he is quite relieved to have his faculties of communication back. Others understand him, and bounce around him in balls of light. Lou enters the darkness of space in a quiet manner. He feels joyful and content. There is, after all, something after death, and that Something is a great collision of nameless souls, of which Lou is one. So now Lou doesn’t really have an identity, much like in life, and he doesn’t have any concerns, much unlike life, and he is very, very glad to be with Others.
Lou asks the Others, in a transcendent way, of course, “Why?”
And the Others reply, in a transcendent way, “Why not?”
And Lou is content with this answer, and realizes that for his entire measured human life, he had been traveling without moving, and in death, he is continuing his journey. Lou thinks: “What a relief. What a grand, great relief.”
posted by FRITZ at 4:27 PM
4 Comments:
Even your "pathetic" efforts put mine to shame.
I found this to be lovely.
I watched "Awakenings". Really very sad. I wanted justice for those people...a place for them to go...
In ancient times, Lou may have been regarded as a spiritual master—a man so still in thought and meditation that he rejects the world and its noise. He might have been called a priest or a monk. But it is not long ago; it is 2005, and Lou is merely considered statuesque. Lou is catatonic; doctors would reject any claim of spiritual meditation. Lou is not a Zen master; he is just an old piece of human furniture.
-> That was the best analogy EVER. I followed that directly, loved the comparison. I could see the same man, in both environments. I'm flooded with awe.
Then, the ending. Beautiful.
I don't cry, but if I did, I'd of cried for this one. Amazing, Fritz. Very amazing. That's not lip service, either, I really really liked this, a lot. Very well done.
Justin: Wow! I didn't even know you would make it over here. Thank you for reading and thank you for being moved.
I've been spending too much time thinking about the Cosmic Reality. Tsk, that can't be good for me.
Thank you for reading. And thank you for being sincere.
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