As teenagers we (me&mates) sometimes used to explore/drink and take drugs in an old fever hospital. The Infirmary a really very spooky place where one oughtn't alter your states. It elicited this feeling of utter dilapidation, from the rotting boards in the walls, to the amount of debris covering the floor, acres of curling paint, cadaverous empty elevator shafts, actual physical endangerment from partially fallen through floors and ceilings, rats, graffiti from the inane to the obscene, the assorted rubbish of possible human occupancy, in some rooms filthy sleeping bags, books, tapes, clothes. One particularly unnerving room had this jointed wavering metal arm (thing) that descended from the ceiling over a chair in the room's centre (bolted to the ground and long since eviscerated of its stuffing).
Things become so charged with horror movie connotations in abandoned buildings, especially anywhere with a dodgy history, ever inch of your being wants to get out of there, you think that something awful must happen. I used to become so tense when walking through the long doorlined corridors, ready to spring into action at the slightest sound concurrently careful not to fall through the floor. Scared the shit out of me.
'Tis a block of modern apartments now. I wouldn't fucking live there for all the tea in china.
Looks crap in retrospect. Thought it was labyrinthine at the time though. Funny how the memory mythologizes things. |
