The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room

It occurred that today was one of those days necessitating, as is the case with most affluent members of humanity, suffering any numerous trifling ailments, me to sojourn to the sterile environment of the clinic. More depressing than the sterility, eternal waiting, the vast expense, or even the confrontation with the organic functionality of the body is the most unfortunate fact that one must share the place with those truly sick. However, the overall propensity of such a visit was offset by the fortunate occurrence that I had procured a whole day off from work for this trifling ordeal. Therefore I walked into Greenoak Medical Center more or less complacent. One cursory glance sufficed to reveal I was the only soul missing a long face.
“The doctor will see you in one moment sir,” the receptionist informed me, “Please take a seat in the waiting room… um… yes, through that door to the right. A nurse will call you when They’re ready for you sir.”
I passed through the indicated glass door into the waiting room. It was neither stuffy nor roomy, but felt rather like one would expect a waiting room should. There were a dozen or so chairs arranged along two of the walls and a large aquarium against the third. A boy stood with his face pasted against the glass tank and a mother paced across the room with a screaming baby. Most of the other people sitting in the chairs escaped my notice. Though one person particularly stood out from the rest. He was a man missing both his legs, sitting in an ugly brown wheelchair. I would have desirably sat across the room from such a character, but the only empty chair was immediately adjacent to his wheelchair.
“Is this seat taken, sir?” I inquired.
After a long pause and no answer I sat down. Actually the man showed no sign of awareness or response at the sound of my voice. Upon sitting down I began to examine him carefully. He had long unkempt hair that hung down to his shoulder and a roughly shaved face that had not been tended to for some days. His steel colored hair and the rough skin beneath his whiskered face gave him a weathered and tired look. His neck and chest were somewhat slumped, and he carried a little extra weight, but he was not obese. His trunk ended underneath blanket, leaving a gapping hole where his legs should have been. The absence of his legs disfigured his image more than any other smaller defects and made it awkward to look at him, but tempting to stare.
Adjacent to my seat there was a table heaped with all kinds of magazines. The legless man sat next to the table perpendicular to me. It created an awkward position, for my legs lied where his should have also lied. If he were any other man walking on the earth there would most likely have occurred one of those situations when two sets of feet are cramped together. Both people stretch out their feet only to bump into the other’s foot, and then, slightly ashamed at selfishly taking up space, both pairs of feet retract to their original position. After a few minutes both sets of shoes creep back and invariable revert once again. Here the absence of such an awkward situation itself became awkward.
To divert my eyes from the human spectacle before me, I turned to the table between us, laden with an ample supply of what is the Novocain of the waiting room. There I found the normal staple of such haunts, mostly Hollywood tattle and prattle, with a nice selection of self-help guides and a few of the Hollywood babble type dedicated to the sports. I picked up one that looked a little more reasonable or interesting than others and busied myself with perusing its contents. I did not truly desire to read at that time, nor do I believe many people really enjoy their waiting room literature, however fantastic it might be. Rather there is something not quite comfortable, or not right, about waiting rooms, a feeling that is somewhat abated by reading. There is something in a person that shrinks from thinking of the coming appointment, and another element resentful on meditating on the unsure future beyond the clinic. The result is that the waiting room most often is filled with the most trifling and shallow thoughts anywhere to be found.
I soon gave up reading and resumed staring at my wheelchair bound neighbor. Upon his lap, or what should have been his lap, he had heaped dozens of magazines. He was completely engrossed in reading the magazine in his hands. His eyes scanned each sheet of paper rapidly and his rough fingers nearly ripped the pages in his hurry to get to the next one. He let his eyes linger here and there to collect some bit of information, and then, to make up for lost time, he would fly through more pages. Breath came to the man heavily and either ran, plotted, or paused in sync with his fluttering eyes. Occasionally, while focusing his eyes on some matter, he would scratch the rough stubble on his chin.
His whole demeanor was that of a lost man desperately searching and not finding. He devoted his entire momentary existence to the search, though he himself knew it was hopeless. However unsettling his physically condition was, it was only a microcosm of an incomplete and mutilated soul. I attempted to divine a correlation in the selection of magazines on his lap. No such revelation appeared; the magazines were as random as his flickering glance. Intrigued, I attempted to address the man.
“What is it that you are reading there, sir?”
No answer.
“It must be very interesting. Is it? … Which magazine are you reading?” I questioned a second time.
…Uh, um… nun’in much,” he finally replied, letting his eyes leave the magazine just once to impart a cold glare.
I wondered at his hostility and consummation as he closed our conversation with a quick curse. For the moment I retreated to the cover of my own magazine. Sneaking glances back at the man I saw there was no reason to hide, for he was once again buried in another magazine. Minutes passed as I trudged through the task of keeping busy, as though this were required in a waiting room. After a time though, I was unable to contain my curiosity.
“What are you in for today, sir?”
No answer. His expletive evidently had sealed all further conversation between the two of us. He blocked out all of his senses and left me a deaf ear in favor of his glossy paper. He never heard my question nor did he see a nurse walk up to him just as I asked him the question.
“You talk’n to Bobby here? Ha, fat chance you’ll get a dialogue out of him,” she cackled.
“So do you know what happened to him?”
“Happened. The stupid fool. Got himself legs – got salvation and he don’t wan’ it.
“Salvation?”
“Yeah that’s what he’s in for. Here for surgery to get his legs back.”
“How’s that?”
“Oh, it’s new science; technology and all that. They say it works too, don’t know if I believe it or not. They say the can use legs from a dead donor to give amputees back natural legs. Something about DNA advances and stem cells make it happen. Say it works. God knows, I s’pose.”
“Is the surgery particularly painful then?” I asked. “Or is it unproven and dangerous?”
“No. Not painful at least. The doctor, Bobby’s doctor himself, had the operation done on him, and he swears on it. Not one bit of pain he says. He aught to know.” She paused, but read my next question in my eyes before I had a chance to speak it. “Yeah, who knows? There’s no telling for sure. If it was me, I’d be ready right now; cause, you know, it can’t get much worse. But he’s been here all yesterday and got back this morning. Still don’t want to go. God knows, cannot force a man to have surgery, but a professional business doesn’t have all day to wait for a queasy stomach.”
I uttered my agreement in affirmation and bewilderment in one monosyllabic and returned to my article. The nurse shook her head and stared her the patient. She laid her hand firmly on Bobby’s shoulder, and then, and only then, did he notice her. He looked up quickly at her face and then turned back to his library.
“Oh, ___” he remarked. He reverted to his habitual practice. Only a slightly stronger shake of his hand and a vicious scratch at his cheek showed his concern.
“Come on Bobby. Aren’t you ready yet?”
Again he glanced up, but this time at the clock. His look showed he frequented that locality with his eyes.
“So soon?”
“Bobby. Really.”
The man threw down the pamphlet and the mark of a brewing storm in physiognomy burst forth in his body. He gripped the rails on his chair and cowered from the nurse’s touch. A new frenzy of despotism shook his frame and his face grew stiff.
“Not already, no, not now. It can be,” he asserted firmly, “You must go. It is impossible, it can’t be now. I’m not ready now. I-”
“Then when will you be, Bob?”
“I will, I really will. Just not now,” he concluded, turning back to his pile of periodicals. He grabbed several and stared at them all. His eyes silently spoke: “So many, so many. One more, just one last look. At least one more.”
The nurse muttered, shook her head and walked back into the office. Several minutes later another nurse appeared through that door, this time to bring me inside. I tossed aside the circular I had glanced at and walked up. She held the door for me and I crossed over to the inside. I paused, at the other side of the door and wondered, had I too been afraid of that door. Across its threshold all was the same as the waiting room, and yet – but I was beckoned onward and left my thought unfinished. Less than an hour later I crossed that mystical threshold again and issued out into the waiting room unchanged. There, to my surprise (and I might add alarm), still sat the legless man. The young oceanographer, the mother with her baby, and most of the others had left, but not him. He looked up just as the door opened and shot me a parting glare.
I flung away several sets of doors and walked into the free air. It comforted me to know that the real world still existed outside of the clinic. Virgin life ran wild on the wings of the breeze that afternoon. I got in my car and plotted out the rest of my day. I filled it to the brim with such activities and duties that seemed fit. Still, as I drove hither and thither, and ran from this to that, I could not escape seeing the picture of the legless reader. What bothered me even more than the philanthropic guilt, however, was a grating feeling floating at the back of my mind. It urged me to accept a picture I refused to believe. It told me that I also had not escaped the waiting room, that everyday I live in it. It also whispered in my ear the more horrid truth that I also longed to stay. Why, oh why, humanity, do we so desperately love that human aquarium - the waiting room?