An Incident on the 5th

This was the dream I had last night as I rose, once again, from an easy, blue sleep:

It’s October 5, 1971 and I am sitting in what appears to be a hospital waiting room. I know the date because there is a newspaper sitting next to me and I happened to glance over at it for a second. I don’t really know how long I’ve been here, and I don’t remember arriving here. But it feels like I have been here for a long time just sitting on this worn couch and looking around. I can’t be certain, but I feel like I just woke up and happened to materialize here. There are some other people here too. They are reading magazines, watching TV and sipping weak hospital coffee. Seems like a pretty average night. Nothing unusual has happened or seems to be happening. I have not seen any urgent situations arise. It feels perfectly natural to be here, even though it really makes no sense.
Nobody has come into the emergency room with blood oozing out of his or her head or limbs missing or anything like that. Everybody that is here seems to be calmly passing the time while doctors and nurses shuffle throughout the sterile, white hospital corridors. Hospitals always have the same smell to me, like a fresh box of band-aids, or fresh linen sterilized with some kind of industrial strength detergent. The smell is more prominent here than I had ever noticed before in other hospitals.
It feels like something is about to happen, or maybe it’s just that the hospital itself seems ready for something to happen. This place seems prepared, sterilized, equipped and ready to save or bring forth life. Hmmm, I’m sitting in the corner and nobody notices me, maybe I’m not supposed to be noticed? I feel like an apparition. But it is alright, because this day in early October feels so average and so innocuous that if anything did happen, it would require no more than a fleeting “Oh really?” or at best, “Ahhh, that is interesting”.
I feel numb, dazed, and unable to tangle with rational thought. I’d rather just let whatever is happening wash over me, move through me, or rather, I move through it like passing through a smoke screen. This day, this blank day, it is what it is and nothing more; early fall, a feeling of starkness, a passing doctor who stops to hold the door open for an older lady, a half cup of coffee, scrambled reception on the TV, old brown and orange couches, a closed gift shop, the sound of a distant conversation, a flickering light in the hall, a half smile from a nurse, and maybe, behind one of these walls, somebody is being born and about to be brought forth into this nothing of a day.

(To be continued)