The Waiting Room
Brock Ascher, Sarah Brainard, Jennifer High
He’s dead. My God what happened? The doctor sulked in his green
hospital scrubs, trying to make sense of what just happened. He paced
back and forth, arms crossed behind his back, fighting his emotions.
I need somewhere to think, to sit down.
He opened the door to the waiting room. Chairs lined the beige colored walls, some full of sick people and their families, others as empty as the child’s body he had just operated on. He took a seat in the nearest chair, folding his hands between his legs and hiding his emotions from the others in the room. I thought everything was fine. How could he have flat-lined? There must be some explanation.
The doctor produced a pen from his front pocket and clicked it up and down to coincide with his thoughts. He glanced around the room as he clicked and was greeted by a host of sorrowful looking faces. Certainly all of these people had a reason to look forlorn, but none of their situations could rival the absolute horror of his. A child lost his life, and I took it.
Across the room, a mother sat with her two kids, a boy of maybe ten and a crying baby. The children seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind. She doesn’t even notice her baby is crying. How can a mother be so indifferent to her children?
* * *
She sat stiff in the leather waiting room chairs. Her hair was perfectly shaped and her face appeared as if removed from a mannequin. She wore an expensive crimson silk blouse and pressed slacks and seemed unaffected by the noise in the room and the attention it was drawing.
If that secretary doesn’t call our name soon I am going to go up there and tell her exactly what I think. Do they think I have nowhere better to be? I have duties and places to be. I knew I should never have agreed to meet the doctor here; they should have to come to me. Deep breath… ahhh…don't let the outside world get into your inner being. Don't let the outside world penetrate…
The woman moved one arm from around the bundle of baby that rested on her lap. Without moving any other muscle in her body, she reached into the giant purse to her left and removed a small silver flask. Her eyes closed and she took a small sip of the liquid and quickly placed it back inside the bag.
Deep breath. Let the heat spread through your veins. Deep breath.
Her other son who had been tearing around the room lost in his video game tugged at her shirt. Her eyes stayed closed.
* * *
The young boy, just nine years old with excitement in his eyes, continued to pull on his mother’s shirtsleeve. His light blue eyes were wide and full of enthusiasm.
Level 12, I made it to Level 12! Man, Tyler is going to be so jealous. He’s only on Level 10!
“Look, Mom, look! I made it this far and I have over 2000 points!” The boy shouted as he shoved the Game boy in his mother’s face. The mother didn’t even look down at him. She just looked at her blouse where his hand had been and brushed away an invisible speck of dirt.
“See, Mom. When they throw these fireballs at me, and then they have these spiked balls I just jumped over to this, and then I went around the monster and got over the firepit…” The young boy looked up to see his mother’s expressionless face looking off in the distance.
The little boy’s eyes got big and sad and then in the next breath looked angry and flashed with jealousy. Mom never cares. She only worries about the baby. Stupid baby, why’d I have to get this stupid little brother? He doesn’t do anything but make a mess and cry. The boy looked over and stared at the bundle of blankets in his mother’s arms with resentful eyes.
* * *
The 8-month-old infant screamed in his mother’s arms. Owww! Ear hurting, hurt, pain. Hot not too hot, no blankie.
The mother shifted uncomfortably as other patients in the waiting room looked at the screaming child. Having no maternal emotions for the lump in her arms she just looked down at the screaming child without so much as a shhh. Finally the mother found the pacifier wedged between her arm and the baby’s shoulder, and she hurriedly popped it in the baby’s mouth.
For the time being all you could hear was the rhythmic sucking of the pacifier. The baby’s eyes began to flutter. Sleepy, sleepy…good sucky thing....sleepy. White shiny thing, ohh, light on shiny thing. Shiny thing move back and forth….sleepy. The baby stared at the balding head of another patient waiting as he drifted off to sleep.
* * *
One hand was placed tightly over the bicep of the other arm as the man did isometric training on the armrest of the chair. The bright lights of the room gleamed off his freshly shaven head as he moved up and down in the chair.
They were right. You can get a workout anywhere. 1,2,3,4… now that gets the blood bumping. Class on Monday… lets see, Shakespeare and Hamlet. What should I have the class do with that? I can’t think with all the racket in here… maybe for a project we could make fitness tapes dressed as the characters from Hamlet. Man, I could get rich.
He released the armrest and stood up from his chair looking for the first time around the waiting room where he had been sitting for 45 minutes.
I guess it is no wonder so many people at the doctor’s office are overweight. These people need a gym membership! Wonder what that guy is here for?
He paused as he considered the gaunt man in the corner. The man’s long trench coat covered most of his body. His face was completely blank and the hollowness of his cheeks pointed to lack of food, friends, or anything.
He looks pretty worn down. I wonder if he could use a hand with something. Well, here goes my good deed of the day.
He walked confidently across the room.
“Hey, man,” he said quietly, “You doing okay?”
* * *
Click...Click...Click... all he does is click. The gaunt man paced in the corner of the room, eying each of the patients. I sure as hell wasn’t that damn annoying as a kid. The bald man doing exercises on the far side of the room approached him.
“Leave me alone,” he muttered in response.
They’re all the same, idiots who think they can help me. I don’t need help. They do. His hands began to shake. If only they knew what I’ve done. They wouldn’t be bothering me if they knew. I just need silence. Shut up!
The feeling of cold steel on his back excited him as he contemplated his next move. That stupid mother needs to shut her damn kid up.
His head throbbed from all the noise in the room, the clicking, the crying, and the kid’s cries for attention. With each thought the noise in his head escalated. That’s it.
He reached for the gun with one of his large shaking hands. That’s it. That’s it. He pointed the gun and gritting his teeth, pulled the trigger.
* * *
The explosion in the room was deafening as the bullet screamed from the gun.
The doctor’s thoughtless clicking stopped as the pen hit the floor.
The mother’s eyes shot open as she gasped and released her tight hold on the baby.
The child’s fingers went still over the Game Boy pad as Mario fell to his death.
The baby’s screams echoed through the silent waiting room as he could finally wiggle out of the blanket.
The English teacher stared blankly and muttered, “… or not to be. That is the question.”
Midnight in the Bathroom of Good and Evil
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"The Waiting Room"
Midnight in the Bathroom of Good and Evil
