Two blocks from the house I grew up in sit the remains of the Sarnia General Hospital. I still miss it. After all, I was born there on October 15, 1993; and my father was born there on February 17, 1947; and his father died at a hospital nearby on January 13, 2000. And that’s not even the end of it: the family name came back when his father died at the Sarnia General Hospital on May 29, 1951. My great-grandfather’s son also died there on July 30, 1992; and so did his daughter on September 13, 1996. Runs in the family, I suppose.

We used to play hide-and-seek around the remains of the hospital late at night. Some of the windows on the fourth floor were still in place; others were boarded up with beat-up sheets of plywood, which let drafts of air and animals inside, amongst other things. Near the back of the emergency room entrance, around the corner from the wheelchair ramp, stood a nook behind three large bushes next to the gas meter. I always hid there, and since we were all young and naïve none of us ever thought to check in the same place twice.

It was convenient living so close to a hospital. I used to go even when I wasn’t even sick. At the front desk, there was a gift shop filled with condolence cards, chips, candy bars, and general convenience store wares. Whenever I saved up a dollar, I would walk over and peruse. The clerk seemed quite bored at the front desk, but whenever I came in, she smiled. Sometimes she would know what I was going to buy before I walked in. I found it fascinating that she had the time to memorize my rotating selection of chocolate bar preferences. Aside from frequenting the front desk, I was also a regular patron at the emergency room. Something about the emergency room captivated my imagination. At the slight hint of a fever, I would insist on going over, even during the summer.

One summer I was at a friend’s birthday party. Everyone was in the pool, and I had rarely ever been in pools since I was allergic to chlorine. The doctor just gave me this special cream. It was supposed to help with the chlorine rashes, he said. Today was the first day to give it a try. So, after putting the cream on I decided to take the slide down into the deep end. I felt a thump on the end of my toes, and then I floated up. I glanced at everyone sitting by the side of the pool and attempted to wave to them. “Hello! Look at me! I just went down the slide!”

Confession: I had never learned to swim, and I thought that all it required was pulling your hands above the water like you would to raise your hand to ask a question in class. Each hand went up in succession. Back and forth, I repeated the rhythm, but nothing good came of it. Eventually, I started screaming. I later found out that everyone thought I was performing some kind of trick: I was a class clown, so that seemed like a reasonable expectation from my peers. I wouldn’t fault them for it.

I kept raising my hands trying to get everyone’s attention. “Hello! Look at me! I just went down the slide!” Nothing came of it. I sank to the bottom of the pool and felt my lungs fill with water. The first few tablespoons were painful. But after a litre or so, everything felt flushed out like an old hose. I went numb, closed my eyes, and felt nothing.

As it turned out, one of the kids swimming nearby realized that I was drowning. She brought my body up to the surface, and I coughed up water for a few minutes before waking up to a crowd of children and adults hunched over me. I was surprised. “What were they looking at?” I thought to myself. I must have still been in shock because when I told everyone that I was fine and everything felt okay, they said: “Dying is nothing like that! It’s painful and awful and the worst thing you can imagine!” I’m still not sure what they mean by that. I still don’t know what to make of the whole experience—and I went through it. How could everyone around me, who had only watched it from the outside, know what it is supposed to be like?

I thought about the whole thing in the back seat of the car on the drive home. It was silent the whole way; my mother was in shock and didn’t want to say anything, and my father knew to stay silent. I figured it was best to keep to myself until we all got home.

On the drive home, we passed by the Sarnia General Hospital. I looked out the back window to see people coming in and out of the emergency room. I could see the three bushes in front of the gas meter where I always hid. They were olive green and some of the tips had been burnt from the sun. The windows were rolled down; partly because it was July and partly because I was still wet from the pool. I wanted to go inside, but I resisted mentioning anything.

– Jordan Walters