GOD'S WAITING ROOM

We all grow older and as we do we might sometimes get the feeling that if we're anywhere we're in God's waiting room...

Arthur Peabody was ambivalent about his home. He was retired - had been for countless years - and it was a retirement home. He had his own little room and it was all comfortable enough, though Doreen had passed on and it was lonely. It wasn’t until she died that he knew he loved his Doreen. Before that tragic event he’d never been quite certain about love, but as her coffin had trundled away in the chapel he had known, finally, that he had always loved her, and he was pleased.

The Home (Peace Valley) had a committee and there were regular meetings, and he went to them all because he’d always attended meetings. They were his connection to democracy, and he believed in that. He always had. So had Doreen, bless her. But she had been in whatever place his faith denied for several years now, and his loneliness hadn’t improved.

Anyway, there was a committee meeting and he was there, sitting in his seat at the end of a middle row, not far from the toilets in case he felt the urge as he did sometimes. His bladder had been a bane for years, had been before Doreen had passed away and still was.

When Arthur Peabody stood on his two increasingly feeble feet after the Chairman had asked the assembled gathering to “stand for one minute in silence as a mark of respect, and in memory of those members who have passed away over the last twelve months” it crossed his mind, not for the first time, that he might as well be in God’s waiting room. And when he caught the bright green eyes of Ginny Grimwolde searching him out across a crowded meeting hall he was quite certain.

Ginny Grimwolde had been “after” him for the past two months. They’d never met before (as far as he could recall, though he was man enough to admit that his memory, never his strongest point, was failing) and ever since she’d touched him with her emerald vision he’d felt trapped.

It wasn’t that she was unpleasant (except, possibly, for those eyes) but that she was persistent. Last night she’d as good as asked him to buy her a drink, and with the bar prices what they were. Then, afterwards, she’d paused suggestively by the fish and chip van, and he with legs that couldn’t run away any more. So he’d bought her a small portion of fish in the hope that it would be the gift that bought him some peace, but it hadn’t and before he could say Jack Robinson he found himself in her flat with a half-empty wine glass in his hands and his trousers round his ankles.

The trousers were round his ankles because they were wet with the other half of the wine from the glass he was holding, and he was sure she’d contrived the accident. No matter what her motive, though, she offered to clean his trousers for him before they stained permanently, and he’d been obliged (as a consequence of the way she’d put it) to let her, so his trousers were round his ankles en route to being off altogether.

“I’ve seen a man in his underpants before,” she’d grinned through her bright green eyes, and he’d hoped there was nothing remotely suggestive about the way she said “pants” because his were fairly tight y-fronts that left nothing to the imagination, save, possibly, details of colour.

That had been last night and now she was there in the hall and her eyes had found him and were holding him. They were at the Annual General Meeting of the tenants association, and as the tenants were all well stricken in years the standing in silence in order to remember members who had passed away during the past year was all too significant a moment for everyone. There were odd tears, a sniffle here and there, a suppressed cough and (he was sure he heard) a gleeful chortle.

He examined his feet, grateful that his trousers no longer showed any sign of last night’s red wine incident. It was the same pair and Miss Ginny Grimwolde had made a first class job ensuring their pristine condition. He had stayed in her flat for above an hour while she scrubbed and rubbed mysterious substances from even more mysterious bottles into them, and all that time he had been acutely aware of a stain on his underpants, which should have been white and mostly were. That stain had nothing to do with anything remotely improper but was, rather, the residue of a spillage of brown sauce earlier that day.

“It’s brown sauce,” he had mumbled.

“You’d tell me anything,” she tittered, and he blushed.

“No - it really is,” he had insisted. “I had some sauce on my chips for dinner and some of it … well, you know how it is...” He meant lunch, but he always called a meal at noon dinner.

“Take them off and I’ll clean them,” she suggested in a “don’t you dared say no” voice. “I’ve seen what a man keeps in his underpants more times than I care to remember,” she added with the broadest green-eyed grin that he’d ever seen.

“It’s all right!” he almost shouted. “I’ll wash them myself later, when I get back to my flat, later, soon.”

It didn’t make proper sense, but he knew what he meant, and he‘d got a severe bout of indigestion when she called his bluff (or whatever it was) and started pulling the offending garment down, past his bottom, towards his knees, with him protesting like a child.

Now he was standing almost straight up and paying respects to fellow tenants who had “fallen asleep” during the past twelve months, and the feeling he got was best described as “uncomfortable”. The touch of indigestion that had plagued him on and off recently came back and he swallowed, trying to shove it back where he assumed it had come from, and, for once, failing.

But it didn’t work, not this time, not this very last time, and he knew, as he saw the floor slowly, painfully slowly, coming up to meet him, that Ginny Grimwolde was to be the last person he’d ever in all his life and for ever see, and he was mighty glad of that.

He hoped life wouldn’t be too lonely for her in God’s Waiting Room, with him gone and without him to turn to and tease and take the trousers from and tease again.

“Arthur…” he heard her call out in an alarmed and almost tearful green-eyed voice, “Arthur….”

“Doreen…” he tried to shout, but his lips wouldn’t move and no sound came out. He tried again, dreadfully finally.

And nothing. Not even silence. Not blackness, not shadows: nothing at all. And the minute of quiet remembrance dragged on.

Reviews

[NewAgeOldSoul]

I don't think that saying that it is a retirement home explicitly in the first sentence is necessary. It becomes obvious very quickly and the reader could figure it out in a heartbeat. Also a the second sentence should flow more smoothly and be more active, since your first sentence isn't much of a hook.

[Peter Rogerson]

I don't think the first sentence is explicit about anything, though the second sentence is. Thanks for your constructive observation that I will bear in mind should I ever tread the paths to a retirement home again!!!