Waiting Room

school assignment in dialogue. heheh, i had fun w/ it.

The room looked just like any other: four whitewashed walls and a popcorn ceiling, showing spots of age and water-wear.  The room looked just like all the others, but for the posters on the wall—the posters on the wall that explained the whole thing—and the metal door in the far left corner of the room.  There was nothing abnormal about the door, and yet—it was ominous simply because of what it stood for: if you walked through, you didn’t come out the same again—like going to a dentist’s, getting a filling for a cavity, and then leaving with an extra sign of impurity in your mouth.  Except the difference received behind this door is so much more different, so much more serious.

            And in this nearly normal room, in four lifeless, characterless metal chairs, sat four men, each with an equal look of indecision on their faces, each glancing wearily over at the metal door in the far left corner.  This was the waiting room, and the four men had yet to make their four decisions.

            The contemplative silence that hung over the whitewashed, popcorn ceiling room for roughly an hour was broken suddenly by the first of the four voices.

            The man with the worn-down hat, which he twirled around and around on his hat, tore his gaze away from the door in the corner and said, “My wife don’t want me to get this done.  She don’t know I’m here.”

            “When you left this morning,” asked the thin, wizened man, who wore polished black shoes and a gray, collared shirt, which made his hair stand out as the perfect, proud shade of gray, “where did you tell her you were going?”

            “I told her I was gonna visit my Pa.  Pa lives a ways away.”

            “That was your excuse?” sniggered the short, chubby man in the spotless, salesman’s black suit, “Man, I would’ve made up something better—something you can prove, you know.  Something that can’t be disproved too.  Like you could’ve—well, I don’t know…you coulda gone shopping or something, bring her back a box a chocolates and she won’t ask a thing!”

            “Why bother making up an excuse?  If you have the operation, when you go back home, she is sure to notice,” said the gray man.

            “What’d you tell your wife?” asked the salesman.

            “The truth,” answered the gray man.

            “Man,” exclaimed the salesman, “bunch of idiots!”

            “Well, what did you tell your wife this morning?”

            “Nothing, got no wife!  Only me to worry bout—only me to worry myself bout whether I get this done or not.”

            “Do you think it will hurt, Sir?” the teenage boy in the far right seat asked, his voice nervous, his tennis-shoed feet twisting around the legs of his chair.

            “I heard it did—a mighty bunch.  That’s why Virginia don’t want me to get it—always worrying herself about me,” said the man with the hat.

            “I heard it was like getting kicked in the belly by a horse or something—that’s what all the boys at school say.  I heard it hurts an awful, awful bunch,” the boy uttered.

            “I am not so worried about whether it hurts a lot or a little.  I was in the war, can handle pain.  I just—wonder if it will all be worth it in the end,” said the gray man.

            “Kid, I wouldn’t be worried about the pain,” chortled the salesman, “It’s gonna hurt; that’s for sure.  I’d be worried about how it changes you.”

            “Virginia said she’ll love me even if it changes me loads.”

            “Do you think it’s worth it, Sir?  All the other boys—they say that if I don’t get it done now I’ll have to get it later, that they’ll come after me, make me get it.  I just—I don’t know, Sir, I’ve never had an operation before.  I’m not sure if I want to start now.”

            “Good a time as any, kid, if you’re gonna get it done.”

            “If it is as good of a time as any, what is holding you back?” asked the gray man.

            “Figure I oughta at least try to find if there’s any reason not to get it done, before I, you know, get it done.”

            “Have ya thought of anything yet?  My Virginia say the only bad thing is the pain—hurts like burning your hand on the stove.”  The man’s hat fell out of his hands and onto the floor.  He picked it up and clumsily dusted it off on his pant leg.

            “Only bad thing I can find is it’s permanent.,” said the salesman, “Permanent is kinda scary, huh, kid?”

            “Yes.  It is, Sir.”

            “It is permanent, son—very permanent, and questionably immoral,” stated the gray man, running a hand along his gray hair, “Immorality is relative in these times, though—sadly.  If you have any doubt about it, I would tell you that now is as improper of a time as any.”

            “Sir?” asked the boy hesitantly, “But if I don’t get it done, won’t they come for me?”

            “They wanna come for you, they’ll make up some reason for it,” cackled the salesman.

            “Son, you ought to just go home.  He is right on that: if they want to take you in, they’ll take you no matter what, whether you have this operation or not,” said the gray man, leaning forward and locking his eyes with the boy’s, “They are just waiting to see if you fit their category—if you are what they suspect you to be, the operation will not change a thing.  They are just watching and waiting.  Just watching and waiting, son.”

            “He’s right, kid,” said the salesman quietly, “They are everywhere, just waiting for you to slip up, show you’re not the normal they want you to be.”

            “Virginia says this ‘they’ stuff is all a fool’s tale.  Just a bunch of junk, you know.  And she knows a lot, Virginia.  I’ll get her a box of chocolates on the way home, then she’ll never know I got it done.”

            “Seems you going to go on with it, huh, man?”

            “Figures I better, since I’m here.”

            “Are you fully certain—no regret, no doubt,” asked the gray man, his gaze focusing now on the man with the worn-down hat, his words slow and deliberate, much like the sound of a lawyer explaining rights and standing on a case, “no question at all about what will happen to you once it is finished with, how you will be eternally different?”

            “Yes,” said the man with the hat, “pretty sure.”

            “Your wife will realize it,” stated the gray man, “especially if she is as wise as you say that she is.  Will you be able to tell her—and with absolutely certainty—that you did not entertain any doubts about it, that you came to the decision with everything in consideration and decided to have it done with the whole of your heart?”

            “He said he was, man,” snarled the salesman, “Stop pestering him before he changes his mind again.”

            “Hundred percent.  Whole my heart, yeah.  Yeah.”  He nodded to give action to his words.

            “Go then,” said the gray man, nodding and leaning back in his chair, “Get the operation, and good luck.”

            “I think I’ll go too, man.  It’s starting to get dark outside I bet.  Been waiting here too long, getting so, so bored.  I’m ready for this operation—looking forward to it maybe.  Yeah, looking forward to it,” said the salesman, following the man with the hat to the metal door.

            “Good luck to you too then.”

            “Good luck, Sir.”

            “Yeah, yeah, yeah—good luck and all that,” said the salesman, shrugging and then jumping at the chill of the metal door as he put his hand on the doorknob, “See you, kid.”

            The boy and the gray man were silent as the metal door clicked shut behind the two other men.

            The silence was so heavy that it lasted only a thin moment.

“So, son, have you reached a decision yet?” asked the gray man, switching chairs so that he now sat right beside the kid, “No hurry, just asking.”

            “Not yet…Sir, if you’ll let me,” asked the boy, a hesitant smile creeping on his face for the first time that day, “can I ask you something?”

            “Certainly.”  A smile crept on the gray man’s face too.

            “If you have doubt about it, why are you here, waiting with all of us?”

“I am the doctor.”    

 

Author's Note

did the end surprise you?

Reviews

[Legion]

Yes, and the whole "what operation" thought is killing me. Great way to build suspense and keeping it going. Great write. But seriously, what is the operation?