For a Fleeting Moment
Copyright © 2005, The Ladd School.com - Written by The Curator

A half an hour before arriving at Ladd, a heavy fog settled in so thick that - as we would soon discover - visibility was limited to only a few feet before us. Tonight as we walked down the end of the long dirt road cocooned in thick fog, and the deep dark of a moonless night, we considered turning back, yet our legs carried us deeper and deeper into the folds of darkness as though they had a mind of their own. Drawing nearer the end of the road, a pair of decrepit buildings emerge from the silent clouds around us; we call theme the cemetery buildings. They are our dismal bastions to the Ladd School grounds.

Arriving at the grounds, it is difficult to orient ourselves; in the foggy dark we are without direction. Before long, confusion sets in. Quickly becoming lost, we no sooner find ourselves in unfamiliar surroundings, suddenly standing before a small brick building lit from within and without, preceded by a large square pit, whose fall would have surely killed one of us. Disoriented and panicked, it took us some time of blind wandering before finally stumbling upon an old walkway, which, when followed, brought us past the tall, lurching Howe building, and directly to this nights destination...

You know you've arrived at the Fogarty building immediately by its shape; though, as impressive its edifice may be outside, the hallways inside curl around in circles smaller than you might expect. The rooms in the hospital's basement are small, vague chambers of peeling gray walls and concrete floors; the atmosphere is overtly dungeon-like, claustrophobic, and cold. The only corridor is strewn with cobwebs and debris, occassionally interrupted only by wooden benches resting just outside closed doors and dark doorways.

Though the first three floors above us bear nearly no difference, in setting foot onto the fourth floor, the heavy, musty odor of abandonment seems to momentarily disappear. Suddenly the stairwell smells like a hospital, and for a fleeting moment, our surroundings come together like the pieces of a puzzle; for a moment suddenly, we are THERE, in the hospital, at the Ladd School.

On this floor, the rooms are still labeled with the names of their former occupants in the little sliding frames on the doors. Some patients are indicated as being 'at risk' - so called - with a red mark next to their name. Even their beds are marked with red tape. It is remarkable to realize we are looking at the beds of those whose names we know, the long-since perished, long forgotten.

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