The Waiting Room

The clock says I’ve been here for two hours. Past the sliding doors leading to the emergency ward, everything is covered in plastic. The doctor hasn’t returned. In the back corner by a six-month-old pile of Pottery Barn, a chunky little white kid slides halfway off his chair and taps his tiny feet without any music. He isn’t tapping to a set rhythm, and there isn’t much purpose unless he’s trying to get more steps to register on an old-school pedometer clipped to his belt buckle. But who wears those anymore? I can envision an elderly man with high blood pressure doing the same, shaking away at it while waiting for a triple-cheeseburger with a side-order of truffle fries at the corner diner. These two images—boy and man—conflate into one.

I see him returning home and lying to his wife about how he thinks these walks are getting easier. In my daydream, this elderly boy-man is three-and-a-half feet tall, wearing an oversized flannel shirt, yet maintains a geriatric, patchy hairline, and lifts himself on a stepping stool to peck his wife on the cheek as she finishes loading the dishwasher. He kindly refuses one of her kale smoothies for lunch—doesn’t have the appetite—while showing her the 5,000 steps he fabricated. The daydream falls away, and I’m back in this waiting room, looking around at all the worried, tearful eyes, and can’t help but feel ashamed for being so absent.

Everyone is scanning each other, knowing that since they are here and not in the other room, they’re waiting for somebody to come out—or not. Everyone takes assessments of each other’s emotions; all in the eyes since we’re all wearing masks now. We, myself included, are all determining what might be the appropriate demeanor to perform—should we let our worries bubble over? Turn over some chairs? Yell at the desensitized front-desk nurse? Or should we keep everything to ourselves since everyone else seems to be doing that? I can’t be certain because, as I said, we’re all wearing masks. Some are kind enough to nod, give a squint implying the tight curl of a smile. I look away, slightly embarrassed for staring too long, yet grateful for their perceived kindness.

I’m sure every one of us at some point today caught ourselves staring at this chunky little white kid dissociating from what’s going on, drowning out the cries, the gasps, the do-somethings flying around this emergency waiting room with his tap-tap-tapping. I am sure we’ve given him many lives to distract ourselves. A dance number for a grade school talent show. A village idiot hopping over a bonfire to ward off pestilence. A doctor coming through those sliding doors with better news. 

Matt Gillick is from Northern Virginia. He received an MFA from Emerson College in 2021. most recent work found in The Manifest-Station, Land Luck Review, and New Square. He is the editor at-large of Cult, a new literary journal.