The Waiting Room

At some point in my life
I found myself in an enormous room.
Little plastic fold-out chairs were lined against the walls
and clustered in haphazard bunches across the floor,
and were filled with hundreds of people sitting,
standing, leaning against the walls.

So many people.

I looked down at the paper slip in my hand.
A set of simple yet elegantly written digits
were scrawled there.
My number was quite high.
What number were they on?

I took an unoccupied seat
next to a patient, pleasant-looking old man.

I fiddled with my fingers,
quickly lost interest in observing the other inhabitants-
who also, I noticed, all carried slips of paper with their numbers.

Anxious for clarity, I ask him,
"What are we waiting for?"
"Don't know." He replied.
"Are they calling out numbers?"
"I suppose they are."

Feeling as though he was of little help,
I quietly waited., observing so as to gain more insight.
A few times, a single, solitary door
would open on the far side of the room,
held wide by some figure who's face I could not distinguish.
As though called, though no sound nor beckon was made,
A person would immediately disengage from their conversation
or idle fidgeting, or reading, or pacing,
and would turn promptly to the door and walk through it.
Passage made, the door would close and would return to appearing
extraordinarily inconspicuous again.

Growing restless,
I prodded conversation again.

"What number are they on?" I asked.
"Not sure." He replied pleasantly without turning to look at me.
Annoyance increased, and for some reason, anxiety.

"How long have you been waiting?"
His expression became somewhat vacant,
his eyes glazing as though watching something
inside their lens'.
"Oh," he murmured, "Quite some time."
"Um, what number are you?" I inquired,
determined to find something about the nature of my circumstances.
He lifted his hand and exposed his slip of paper.
It was significantly lower than mine.
"Yours is very low! It must be close to your turn."
He did not reply.

I looked again around the room.
Some were pacing anxiously,
others clutched their number tightly
and cast terrified looks at the innocent door,
these same people had turned pale with fright each time the door had opened.
Others, though few, were conversing loudly and with much laughter,
with their number sticking partially out of their pocket, forgotten.
These individuals had looked up curiously, perhaps expectantly even,
when the distant door had opened.

Absorbing the general attitude of the room,
I turned to my "companion".
"Do you know what's through the door?"
"Do you?" He looked at me now, and his mild, sincere expression took me aback.
"N-no. Of course not I just got here." Slightly rattled, I looked away.
"How can I know whats beyond it if I'm still here?"
I gaped at him for the sheer sensibility in his argument.
After a moment, I pressed on. "Are you nervous?"
"Of what?" He asked, perfectly calm.
"Going through the door." I said flatly, somewhat irritated.
"Why should I be?"
"Because you don't know whats beyond it
and it might be your turn soon!"
I exclaimed, exasperated.

He did not answer and looked hardly phased at all.
He then looked down at his number again,
with a vacant face, and said plainly,
"I suppose my number is quite low.
All the others that came here with me have already gone."
"So you should be going soon too!" I reasoned.
"Yes," He replied, "My number should be called very soon."
"And then you'll be going through the door."
He turned in his seat and looked at me
with a mixture of surprise and skepticism.
He examined me thus for a few moments
then smiled mildly, and shook his head.
Turning back in his seat he resumed his patient
sitting, and staring, detached from his environment.
"So... so you're not afraid?" I asked again, this time my voice hushed and solemn.

"Of what?"



Kristen Stacy
"Rose Erifnosi"

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Kristen Stacy 2/12/2010

Copyright Kristen Stacy