The orderly runs a silent dust mop across the masonic checker board hallway floor.

Sounds like machines beeping, a voice on an intercom calling for someone by their title, silent muffled weeping, elevator doors ringing your floor, the rise and fall of a mechanism keeping someone alive.

The small chapel no bigger than a large pantry,
two rows of oak carved pews.
Italian made cedar crosses and small stain glassed reliefs adorn each of the walls.

Candles burn and flowers die and nothing we've done here means anything where we are all going.

The Jaguar sits still and unfinished in the carport.
None of us can bring ourselves to finish what he started.

We get but only one chance to live, one chance to experience love.
So many of us end up living a full life of pain.

He asked how I felt the night that he gave in.
I told him I felt cheated and that nothing here will ever be the same