Now, Dante was once again aware of just how enormous this place was as the giggles and cries of children echoed off the walls. It was like all of the sound was being filtered out of the play areas and into the areas in between, making each play area seem peaceful and quiet, but the outside seem abuzz with activity.
Left. Right. Left. Left. Left. Right. Circle around a cubicle wall, doing a U-Turn. Right. Right Again. Straight for about 50 feet. Left. Dante could barely keep track. The pathways twisted and turned so many ways, it was like a labyrinth. Dante only barely managed to keep his sense of direction by looking for the giant murals that adorned two of the opposite walls. No way the uninitiated could make it through this place.
Dante could catch brief glances into each area through the open space where a door would be as they passed by it. A group of twelve year olds were playing with big hollow blocks. Stacking them and throwing them. That looked kind of fun. A group of elementary school aged children were making things with play-doh. One or two of them looked to be making some decently complicated creation, like people. One of the play-doh men even looked a little like Mr. Bill. Neat.
A group of babies about Dante’s age were finger painting (all food based paint, Lysa insisted). One girl was even making a beautiful and very realistic self portrait. Clearly she had been an artist in life. A shame it had gone to waste. Yet another group were being read to, all huddled around in a circle as an African American Judy with red rimmed glasses smiled and read to them; though he couldn’t hear what story it was.
Another cubicle held actual babies crawling around and playing with kittens. Kittens? All dogs go to heaven, but cats go to Limbo? Wait. Animals didn’t really have souls, eh who cared? Stranger things had happened to Dante today.
Lysa pointed all of these details out and more, making sure Dante wouldn’t miss them. Was this her plan, then. He shouldn’t leave Limbo because even though he’d be treated as less than a one-year-old, he had a variety of entertainment options? What next? A dental plan? Oh wait, unlikely. Most babies didn’t have enough teeth. The point was Dante remained unconvinced.
That’s when their stroller came up to a pair of doors. They were the kind you might expect to see in a hospital, except they had babyish stencils on them. Rainbows. Baby Animals. Baby versions of certain famous copyrighted cartoon characters that shall not be mentioned here. (So there was some place where Disney and Warner Bros. couldn’t reach out and sue.) Above the doors in baby blue stenciling was a wooden sign that said “Newborn Room”. Below that was a more plain sign that said “Quiet Please”. (Thank whoever that this place hadn’t taken away his ability to read!)
It was funny that he hadn’t noticed these doors when he first came into Nursery 1017AB. They must be along the fourth wall, relatively under and behind the stairs that Dante had descended when he first arrived.
Their Judy stopped pushing the stroller briefly so that she could press a bright red button. The doors whirred open automatically, and they were pushed quickly through. Dante heard them whir back to closed as he looked around the new room.
If the outside area had been like a daycare or nursery school, then this place eerily resembled a newborn’s ward at a hospital. It was just as big as out there, but more orderly with rows and rows of newborn cots in straight lines. A light tinkling, like a music box, permeated the air and played a lullaby as they walked around. Judy’s, all dressed in flowing robes- looking vaguely like young Mother Theresa’s- walked down the aisles, their faces stoic but their eyes serene.