Three Hundred and Three

CONCERNING THE TIME SPENT IN A WAITING ROOM STARING AT A PAINTING OF A WAITING ROOM

I have waited in this lit­tle room for a very long time.  I have one of those paper num­bers you pull from a plas­tic machine. The pull-ticket in my hand is wet from palm sweat and wrin­kled from being folded half a hun­dred times. Every few min­utes I look down at the num­ber on my pull-ticket. It is a num­ber I have come to know very well. Three hun­dred three, a cursed num­ber printed with cheap fad­ing ink. The num­ber binds me to this room and this stu­pid wait­ing game. I ques­tion why I have come so far and waited for such a long time in this room to hear the num­ber three hun­dred and three.

Why am I here? I think. I have wasted the entire day to see some­one that can’t pos­si­bly exist.

The lit­tle yel­low room is still all around me. Nobody reads mag­a­zines, they just stare into the shal­low noth­ing­ness before their eyes. Each one of them is feel­ing exactly the same as me. I spread my fin­gers over my face and gen­tly rake them across my eyes and cheeks and chin. I sense some­thing bad is com­ing, I sense some kind of dis­tur­bance in the mun­dane order of things in my life. The sound of some unseen fan hums through­out the room.

Time passes. The worst kind of loser is the loser of a wait­ing game. Three hun­dred is called out as the sun sets over this strange town. When the sec­re­tary calls out three hun­dred and one my heart jumps. I begin to remem­ber my insis­tence on com­ing to this wait­ing room. I remem­ber my pur­pose. There is hope.

And more time passes.

It is dark and the blinds are closed just before three hun­dred and two is called. I begin to feel tired again and all of the day’s excite­ment at meet­ing the most impor­tant man in the world have spilled out and dis­ap­peared into the con­tours of this wait­ing room. Time ticks by, pecked away by num­ber three hun­dred and two.

My body aches from this cheap chair. My head is heavy and mud­dled with dense, unim­por­tant thoughts. I am in a kind of dep­re­cat­ing pos­ture. I know I should sit up straight, but I can’t muster the energy to play proud any­more. I will die a crooked shaped man.

“Three hun­dred and three,” says the woman and I shoot up like a popped corn and chuck myself toward the office. Color returns to life. Lit­tle orna­ments of appeal start to flicker on the floppy lit­tle sec­re­tary; emer­ald green eyes and well pol­ished teeth. The lights feel less dim and more warm­ing than they did a minute ago and my body cracks itself sym­phon­i­cally as my bones re-align.

I smile as num­ber three hun­dred and two returns to the wait­ing room. With that my wait is over. I hand my crum­pled pull-ticket to the sec­re­tary and head down into the hall­way for a most impor­tant appointment.

© 2009, Metazen. All rights reserved. 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 8:09 pm