Annie Dillard's "For the Time Being"

"This hospital, like every other, is a hole in the universe through which holiness issues in blasts. It blows both ways, in and out of time. On wards above and below me, men and women are dying. Their hearts seize, give out, or clatter, their kidneys fail, their lungs harden or drown, their brains clog or jam and die for blood. their awareness lower like lamp wicks. Off they go, these great and beloved people, as death subtracts them one by one from the living-about 164,300 of them a day worldwide, and 6,000 a day in the U.S.-and the hospitals shunt their bodies away. Simultaneously, here they come, these many new people, for now absurdly alike-about 10,000 of them a day in this country-as apparently shabby replacements."

"There might well be a rough angel guarding this ward, or a dragon, or an upwelling current that dashes boats on rocks. There might well be an old stone cairn in the hall by the elevators, or a well, or a ruined shrine wall where people still hear bells. Should we not remove our shoes, drink potions, take baths? For this is surely the wildest deep-sea vent on earth: This is where the people come out."

 

Exactly, this is exactly how I feel when I'm at the hospital.