These magazines are dog-eared, used up! Plastered with the finger prints of all those who have sat here before me, waiting. They are an unofficial registry signed by the ink of sweaty smudges on wilted pages. Some are protected by clear plastic shrouds, but inside they usually carry the same stains.
How gray it is in here. There are two other women in here. One is crying.
Does the receptionist have an attitude? I can see her reflection in the dome mirror on the ceiling. I want to tell her, "Honey, if you're gonna to put on eye liner, put the same amount on BOTH SIDES!"
Hmmm... "People" September 23, 1996. If I were Jewish I suppose it would mean something. How come Kevin Costner got divorced? I've got to see Tin Cup. But Golf? They say it's a love story.
Birthdays... Heather Locklear, Frankie Andreu... Who's he? Somebody. I'm sure he's somebody. People magazine doesn't waste ink on a Nobody's birthday. Linda McCartney! Linda "What's a dog with wings?" McCartney.
Did I just laugh? Oh God, did I just forget myself and laugh? The receptionist is looking at me through the funky mirror with her one dark eye.
I'm grinning. OH God I want to laugh. My face is twitching. I can't help it. I'm gonna do a face fart. OK OK OK... I'll just sit here. CALM DOWN. Where's the Kleenex? Don't they have Kleenex in these places? I'll make like I'm blowing my nose. Son of a Bitch.
Why did my brother have to tell me that joke? We were eating breakfast... He always eats Shredded Wheat but he pours hot water over it and then drains the water... It's so... It's his birthday next week, I almost forgot... October first. Images of him. Camp, soccer games, his car, Gwen and their first date, his poem at Dad's funeral.
...Rage, Rage against the dying of the light,
do not go gentle into that dark night....
or something... I don't think that is his poem though.
What a hole in my life THAT was. One week he's off on business and the next his gone. WHY? I used to get so irritated with him. I can hear his voice as if he were here.
"Do your homework!"
Oh Daddy.
"Clean your room!"
Daddy!
I have to think about positive things. Damn it! Crying. I'm crying like a little girl. Miss Blackeye is glareing at me in the mirror. Oh God! Oh God! Where's the Kleenex! Damn it!
"That
Daddy Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT! God Damn
Where is he NOW?
I don't have the strength to even sit HERE.
I'm going to fall!
I'm going to faint!
BREATHE...Breathe...BREEEAAATTTHHHEEE... Breeeeaaaathe....
breaaaaatttttheeee.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
The crying lady is walking this way with the Kleenex. The lady in the mirror is holding my hand. I cannot speak. I can't answer them right now.
I don't know if I'm OK. I really don't know.
My stomach is growling. I would kill for a cup of coffee right now... and a cigarette. Now I have thoughts of the Seven-Eleven that I drove by on the way here and how you can always smell the coffee at least two blocks away, and how it attracts my fellow coffee-holics like an invisible fish hook and that I needed to stay out of the left lane because someone who was too lazy to make their own God Damn coffee was making a left hand turn and traffic was always backed up and it was raining today and how a nice warm cup of coffee would taste so good because the heater in my car doesn’t work very well, on such a chilly, wet, gray, dreary, lonely, day.
The door opens into the clinic breaking the symmetry of the waiting room wall.
It is my name that the nurse was calling.
She is calling my name.
1 comment:
This was originally written in 1996 for a monthly writer's workshop called The Great George Challenge, hosted on the now defunct Prodigy web service. When I wrote it, it became an intensely personal first person experience. As if I was experiencing the female character's experience. it was originally written in a very intense period of about 30 minutes or so.
It was discussed in the workshop and oddly enough the understanding of it was divided along gender lines. The guys thought is was disjointed and pointless and the gals felt it could have reflected the mental state of a young woman making a very tough choice. (You'll have to see how the piece speaks to you.)
I'm a guy, so I was a bit surprised by this. Well the great George Challenge ended eventually and over the years, whenever I would get around to talking about writing with friends and colleagues I would throw this piece their way to get their input.
A few years ago I had taken a new job in another state. I had a conversation with a woman at an after-work Holiday function and we talked about Dad issues and writing and "Oh can I see something that you've written", so a few weeks later I emailed this to her. The odd thing was she would not talk to me afterwards. In fact she actively avoided me.
It was then that the thought occurred to me that perhaps she had had an experience very similar to this one and that it struck too close to home.
I want the reader to know that I am not passing judgment or trying to elicit a guilt trip nor am I doing anything but trying to show some compassion for what the woman went through.
If there is a point, it is that God loves enough not to protect us from ourselves.
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