Memory 24

The corridor stretched out before me. Shiny, long, pale coloured walls smelling of strongly without stinking, like when mother was cleaning. My grandfather's hand felt warm and dry and he did not speak. He looked paler than I remembered and he didn't look down at me.

     We walked for what seemed ages. A left turn, then a right, but the walls always looked the same. A lady in a stiff white dress walked towards us and smiled at me but didn't seem  happy. Eventually we reached one of the many doors and my grandfather stopped and looked around and then finally looked at me.

     "Wait here, I won't be long. Don't make any noise and just wait. I won't be long", he was whispering bit his voice was still loud in the empty hallway.

     He went in to the room. I looked around and saw some people wheeling something that looked like a machine. Another person walked past and smiled at me as I leaned up against the wall.

     Eventually my grandfather came out of the room and said, "It's ok to come in now".

     I stepped in to room and immediately recognised my mother sitting next to the big metal framed bed in the centre of the room. She didn't speak but may have smiled. My grandfather took my hand again and walked me up to the bed. In it there was a man. He had no hair and was the colour of old paper.

     "Say hello to your father", my grandfather said.

I looked around the room but there was no one else in it. I looked up at my grandfather and he was looking at the man in the bed. I looked at him again and saw he had a mole on his right cheek just like my father did. I looked at my mother and she nodded her head and there was a small smile this time.

     "Hello daddy", I said to the man in the bed. "Why does daddy smell?" I asked.

In an instant the grip on my small hand became crushing and my grandfather swung me around and dragged me, half skating and half running from the room. When back in the corridor he looked down at me, his face deep crimson.

     "Don't you ever say that again," he said. But all I could see were the veins on his neck and his large, watery eyes. That's when I realised daddy was dying.