Of The Waiting Room

53 Comments

Genre: mystery (I think)

image

He finally gave in, after ten continuous days of taking the cough mixture, the cough was persistent. It said so on the bottle, do not take for more than ten days without consulting your doctor. He did not have a particularly bad flu and he was sure it was not bird flu or that one that killed you just a few days later. He was still alive after all but the symptoms were really annoying, so off to the doctor he finally decided.

The doctor’s surgery was a recently  renovated house in a quiet part of the city. It would have been a cosy house with a beautiful garden complete with a birdbath and some garden gnomes. He had paused to admire the scenery before he knocked once and entered, a bell chimed.

The lady at the reception looked up and gestured for him to wait as she was serving someone. He looked around for a place to sit, to his dismay, every chair was taken. Then he spotted a stool in the corner it would have to do.

Soon as he sat down, the receptionist was motioning him over. Walking back he struggled not to look tortured. He really was not a patient man.
An impatient patient. The irony.

“Good day, Sir, Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“No, but I would really like to see the doctor, today”
“Well it’s a bit packed today, but if you are willing to wait I will see if I can squeeze you in… Are you alright with that? ”
He looked back into the waiting room, he scratched his head as if in deep thought, what he really was thinking was should I tell her my dad has a pile of money and could buy this two bit surgery, time is money, and it waited for no-one.
“I can wait” he said out loud instead.
“I’ll need your details so I can create a patient file for you. Name”
“They call me XMan”
“Excuse me Mr X but I need your government name and residential address”
He sighed, and ran a hand through his locks “Xinyori Mari, address__”
“Hold on how do you spell that”
He wanted to say you spell it “T H A T” but he instead spelt his name, and gave her his residential address.
As she was filling out the forms he had a good look at her, she must have sensed the scrutiny because she suddenly looked at him. 
“Is everything OK?”
“Can’t breath” and in his head added you take my breath away, then said “Can I have a glass of water.”

“There is a water dispenser in the waiting room and tumblers are just beside it,  please serve yourself. Just fill this in and you can go sit. I will call you when the doctor can see you.”

“Thank you.” he said walking back to the stool he had been sitting on.
Someone else was sitting on it.
This is like a game of musical chairs he thought, you stand up and someone takes your seat.
He eyed his fellow patients some were really ill, particularly the old lady whose chair was beside the coffee table he was considering to sit on. What if I catch what she has he shuddered.
Casually he walked up to her tried not to stare or breathe, he held his breath as he dragged the coffee table to what he judged a safe distance away from any of the other patients. A trail of magazines that had fallen from the table marked his path of retreat. Retreat that’s what he had done, retreat to the cold comfort of an unforgiving corner

Before he sat he picked up some of  the magazines avoiding the ones that had somewhat dubious stains. He tried not to even speculate on what the stains could have been.

After browsing through a couple, he realized they were all old editions, their pages would have been yellow with age had it not been for the old fancy glossy finish and the sample perfumes on the fashion pages saved them from that musky smell of old paper. The Scent of an Unforgettable Woman, read the caption on one of the pages.

The were crossword puzzles in some of the magazines, but they were all completed, badly.

Five down, the sea of tranquility calls this home, someone had scribbled MARS.
How he wished he had a pen, a red one, for corrections. He imagined pricking his finger and correcting the puzzle in his own blood. Blood was red__

His phone rang, he had forgotten to switch it off or put it on silent. There was a sign clearly prohibiting phones, everyone was looking at him and a security guard by the door was already heading his way.
He glanced at the phone screen, it was one of the First Street Savings bank numbers, probably his father calling to ”talk” about his stunt at the bank, he switched the phone off, daddy dearest could wait.

“Sorry” he signaled to the guard showing him that the phone was now off.

Five down was MOON not MARS, which was a red planet; Five across. Someone had written MERCury, of course it would not fit, he sighed.

A pen, his kingdom for a pen.
One of the patients had a hacking coughing fit and tucked behind his ear was a pen. Nope, he was most certainly not going to ask for it especially since he had seen him biting it earlier.

The heat in reception was stifling, a noisy overhead fan spread hot air around, the Met department had said something about a heatwave. He got up, walked to the water dispenser, selecting the cleanest tumbler he could find, then rinsed it, just to be sure. He took a sip, brackish and poured the rest into a large leafy pot plant just beside. The plant was artificial, great. Just great.
“I am in hell” he thought.
Hell is a waiting room.

~~The End
My entry #Blogbattle  entry themed Mars.
It is a continuation (of sorts) Of Dreadful Intentions.
~B

PS Colleen this is for you.

Advertisement

53 Comments

  1. Pingback: #BlogBattle Week 32 “Mars” Entries & Voting | Rachael Ritchey

  2. Nice one! I can totally envision this place. I’ve BEEN in this place. It IS hell! 😀 (Although, for some reason, I have Pat Benatar’s “Love Is A Battlefield” stuck in my head now except with the lyrics “Hell Is A Waiting Room” instead and, yes, I know I’m strange.)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. I know. Those magazines are still giving me the heebie-jeebies. *shudder*

        We are strong
        No one can tell us we’re wrong
        Searching our hearts for so long
        Both of us knowing…
        Hell is a waiting room

        Liked by 1 person

  3. A whole blog post for me *insert shocked face and potential falling to the floor* LOL!!! This was a good read as always! I loved it. Wait is Xinyori the spoilt brat?

    Like

    Reply

    1. hahaha you are welcome ^_^ but for real you, you helped make this happen, make it a series you said, well I havent figured out where the story is going yet, your guess as good as mine, I have given myself a new challenge, to connect up seemingly random short stories into one super complicated messy story, its like a regular complicated story, but it wears a cape, with an S on chest thatstands for super…(i might have let cat out of the bag but thats my genius mastermind plot) Spot on Xinyori is the “spoilt brat” guess who was calling dum duum duuum *suspense music beat*

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice I love it!!!! And when the book is published, I will be first in line to buy it…oooops did I just add more pressure? I really didn’t mean to *said in an evil sarcastic voice*

        Liked by 1 person

      2. A Lil pressure turns rocks into diamonds ✨
        ^_^
        I don’t know about being first in-line, you would have to fumobata jongwe muromo cause the list is growing to buy the book that currently exists only in my, imagine, I appreciate the support all the same.

        ^_^

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Aaah I’m not the only one waiting for that book? Niiiiiiiice! You know what they say about giving the fans what they want? Yes we shall be patient.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. The whole world can relate to this story. Sick and sitting in a doctor’s office with all the other sick people is asking for trouble. 😆 I like the poor sick guy. He has a strong presence here. 🙂 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you Rachael ^_^
      I had an epiphany ^_^ seen the need for having continuations, an explanation if you will of why a character acts the way they do (like Mr Rich Banker’s son if he suddenly decided he didn’t like waiting and pulled out a knife to jump to the front of the line, then apologize after and offer to pay everyone’s bill you know he tots could right?) so a character background I guess, (stuff not enough in just one story even if the two stories can be independent of each other ) l am fairly sure there is a writing term for that…. Oh am making this up as I go along *me explaining away in case this doesn’t come out the way I mean to say it* lol

      You will get sick waiting Anyhoo that’s Joys Of The Waiting Room for you 🙂
      Thanks again
      ~B

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      4. Hahaha awesome thing about the creative people, yes? People might love to read your stuff, but watching how the stories gets spawned leaves them shaking heads and wondering if you an alien as they ask how did you even think that….
        I don’t know I just did lol

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Hell is a waiting room. – This is so true. Oh, I’ve been there so many times. Brilliant;y captured, and I love that we got to see through the “bank robber’s” eyes. 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. What happens to the current magazines in the waiting room? I rarely see them. Perhaps there’s a special pixie–related to the one who steals your socks–who makes sure mags are hidden until they’re at least four months old.

    I would LOVE to never have to wait in another waiting room. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Hahaha where do the current issues go?! Excellent question Cathleen.
      Something that lives in the sock drawer is stealing socks, I would not be surprised if it had a new issue magazine stealing cousin 👻

      Hahaha don’t we all ^_^

      Like

      Reply

  11. Great Blog…amazing posts nicely packaged with practical ideas and gems of wisdom! I had to rate this 10/10! Cheers 🙂

    Like

    Reply
  14. Pingback: Of Tough Love | becoming the muse

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s