On a Journey Through Space

I'm walking down the hallway. Only an hour ago, there were people in the building. I look down at the floors, to the side at the empty weight rooms, to the ceiling that stretch above me, to the darkened sky that peek through windows way up high. I think of who was here just today, just this evening, just this morning, just last week, just last year.

So many people wander in, stay, run, lift, swim, talk, drink, watch television, dance, play ball, shower, change, steam, hit balls, stretch, breathe, interact, read, listen to music. Young, old, fat, thin, tall, short, black, white, Catholic, Jew, atheist, left brained, right brained, athletes, geniuses, idiots, sexually promiscuous, virgins, impotents, introverts, extroverts, blond, red haired, bald, left hand, right hand, paraplegic, singers, poets, artists, scientists, theorists, pragmatists, rich, poor, famous, infamous, ignoble, misunderstood, seeking something.

And they've all left, joined once in space by this building. In, out, back in, back out. Who are the people that come? Who was the person who sat here, who ran here, who showered here, who pissed here, who jumped here, who lifted here, who stretched here, who dunked here? Where did they come from? Where have they gone?

Who has only seen the building in passing, never having stepped in, never having exercised, never having walked past the turnstyles, never having bought a drink, never having rented a racquet?

When the people are gone, I can think of these things, because when it's empty, I know it's empty, and when it's full, my mind is a blank. People are doing what people are doing, and it seems as it should, and only when they're gone, when they've left, when silence is all that is left, when you can hear your steps, feel your breath, and think, that is when thoughts like these enter one's brain.

I am on a journey through space and time, and the space too, is in that journey. It does not move. It does not think. Yet, it is a centerpoint, for those who do move, and those who do think, and when I think about it, so many people, so many minds, so many bodies, so many people, I wonder who am I, and who are we, and how is it that this building which touches are lives does not ultimately connect them.