The waiting room

Someone sat and looked ahead with a blank, serious look. Someone had their face turned down in an old magazine. A child sat on the lap of his mother and cried. The mother rocked him and looked into the air with the same empty, serious look. An old man was coughing repeatedly into his arm.

The walls were white and sterile. In one corner there was a small, untouched box with toys. On a small table a pile of more magazines. I found one that had gossip about celebrities. It was the only time in life where I could read such a magazine with good consciousness.

A man in a white coat came in and shouted a name. It was not my name. The old man who coughed got up. They shook hands. The glance between them was tired and mechanical. Then they got out of the waiting room and into another room.

So, at last I had made the step. I got the appointment with a doctor to take a check. I browsed the magazine. One celebrity had changed his sex. Someone else had changed a spouse. I was getting older. I could feel it. The body was kind of different. It was more worn here and there. And just where I was going to be investigated, I felt it was something special wrong. I felt it was more painful every day. And it seemed that the pain spread outwards. Down through my left leg, up through my left shoulder and out to the fingertips. Was this how it was gonna end? One celebrity had invited the magazine to his home. It was images of the celebrity and his family in all imaginative angles and positions. A woman in a white coat came into the room and shouted a name. It was not my name. The mother and child got up. The grown ups shook hands seriously and went away. An old woman came in and sat down in the vacant chair. Then turned a blank look into the air. I looked at my clock. It had passed the time of my appointment. What had happened? Had they forgotten me? Was the time of the appointment wrong? Should I sit here until there was nothing left of me? Like there, I was sure a new patient was called up, even though he came in after me. The whole thing, the patients coming in and out of the room, it was like a pulsating, thick organism. It breathed heavily. In and out. In and out. And here I sat, motionless, with a magazine about celebrities between my hands, and no one noticed me. Maybe I was not there. Perhaps I did not exist in this world. Perhaps I was a kind of nothing that just observed this organism of patients and white coats.

Suddenly a young woman with a white coat came into the room. She had a reviewing look. She shouted a name. And the name was mine.