Coop scuffs his slip-on sneakers down the hall of a thousand doors. Some of the doors have decorations. Wreaths, name tags, welcome signs. He hates those stupid welcome signs. He trudges between two narrow ruts carved into the smelly carpet from the weight of so many wheelchairs. The light panels overhead alternate on and off at random intervals, like a secret code spelling out THE END IS NEAR. MAYDAY. MAYDAY.
The place is about as old as Coop. They were both brought into the world in the 1980s and they are both falling apart in their nineties. Some coked-out architect was responsible for this ridiculous building, which zigs and zags like one long lightning bolt. It’s exhausting to get from one end to the other. One resident died halfway to the dining room, just slumped over in her wheelchair. Coop supposes he should be grateful he can still walk.
Grateful. His generation basically invented gratitude, and for what? Gratitude means pretending to be thankful while everything crumbles and you do nothing to stop it. He’s not grateful for any of it. He never asked to live this long. He wishes humanity had been wiped out by ecological disaster, as all the pundits had promised. Wasn’t the sun sup-posed to explode in his lifetime? That would have been better. Like the chickens. God, the chickens! The chickens had it easy. The Great Poultricide wiped them clean from the earth in one easy wave of disease and deliverance. What a relief, for the chickens. No such relief for Coop.
In the middle of the hall, a woman sits on the foldable seat of her rollator, her neck bruised with faded tattoos. Brooklyn B., not to be confused with Brooklyn S. and Brooklyn J. Coop thinks there should be a rule: only one Brooklyn in the facility at any given time. When one Brooklyn passes, another Brooklyn can move in. Brooklyn B. looks up at him and smiles, says hello. Coop pretends he’s gone deaf and shuffles past without any acknowledgment. The last thing he needs is to be drawn into a pointless conversation about how are you and how are you and how ’bout this weather? If there’s one thing Coop has learned over ninety-two years, it’s that such interactions are best avoided. There are enough inconveniences he can’t avoid, like the never-ending hallway, like the limits of his own tired body. Like the fact that he’s trapped in the dumbest place ever designed, where every day something breaks, where the elevator only works on Tuesdays.