The Waiting Room

I love wandering into the cinema and just taking pot luck with whatever’s on. I love free refills in Hungry Jacks. I love sunshine and I love rainy days. I love the colour orange, especially with the colour blue. I love electric fans and lava lamps. I love big old houses with cast iron railings. I love the smell of new cars. I love the smell of old books. I hate the waiting rooms in hospitals. Which is where I am now. Fan-bloody-tastic.

--

It was either really late at night or really early in the morning. It was dark and bloody freezing in any case. I pulled my jacket closer around me, which did absolutely nothing to warm me up.

“It’s cold,” I said.

“No shit Sherlock.”

Roger was such an arsehole. What the hell were we doing anyway? In the middle of the night, wondering down some random alley with only one street light, which was broken and flickering like crazy anyway. We could be somewhere else. Somewhere indoors. Somewhere warm, with crappy food and free refills. I told him this.

“What? You scared of the dark or something?”

As I said before: such an arsehole.

“No.”

I am well known for my witty comebacks, as you can see.

“Anyway, we have to find that guy, remember?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Roger was under the impression that we were hunting down some random guy who’d looked at him funny, or done him some other unspeakable injustice that I hadn’t bothered listening to him complain about. We did this every week or so, I was pretty used to it. There never really was any guy; Roger just didn’t want to admit he liked taking long walks in the middle of the night.

--

Why are hospitals always so white? I mean, what the hell’s wrong with green? Or blue? Or yellow? Does the colour white have some sort of mysterious property that I’ve never heard of? Like, magically healing people or making waiting rooms less shitty? Because, if that’s it, it’s not bloody working.

--

This street didn’t have any lights at all. I mean, it’s not like I’m afraid of the dark or anything like that, despite what Roger says, but it was creepy as hell. And so what if it was just some cat falling in a rubbish bin? It could have been anything. Like a serial killer or a ninja or something. Anyone would have screamed; it was instinctive. An instant reaction. Nothing to be embarrassed about at all.

“Jesus, Zach, you’re such a girl. It’s just a bloody cat.”

“Shut up, Roger.” The King of Comebacks strikes again.

“Shut up, Roger!” He said, imitating me in a high-pitched voice, which the arsehole knows I hate with a passion.

“Shut up! It could have been a ninja! What would you have to say then, huh?”

Okay, so that sounded much better in my head.

--

I’ve decided I also hate ticking clocks. Especially white ticking clocks in waiting rooms in hospitals. Tick…tick…tick. It’s like they’re there just to emphasise how slowly time’s moving. Tick. What, only one second? Tick. It feels like hours. Tick. It should have at least been a minute or so. And you can’t even tell the time; since some tool decided the best way to make a clock was without any numbers and by making all the hands the same size. And it’s square. Who designs these things?

--

We were on the street with no lights, but plentiful serial ninja cat murderers, when we came across the crazy man. He had a gleam in his eye that screamed of madness or drunkenness or stoned-ness or something. Something that told me we should just turn around and go right back where we came from.

“Stop! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Walking. Why, is that illegal now?”

Roger did not see the gleam. And because he’s Roger, he just had to open his big fat mouth instead of running away like any sane human being would.

“What did you say to me?”

“Uh, Roger--”

“You! What are you whispering?”

“N-nothing. Nothing, it’s nothing really. Sorry for disturbing you.”

“You’re lying. I know why you’re here!”

“What the hell?”

“Roger, I don’t think--"

“You! Whispering again!”

“N-no, I’m not. Uh, we really have to go now, right Roger?”

“No way! We can walk here if we bloody well want to!”

“Roger, I really think we should--"

“Shut up Zach, stop being such a girl. Who cares about some crazy bastard?”

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?”

He whispered this instead of shouting it at the top of his lungs, but it had far more impact. It felt like being hit in the face, like having a bucket of cold water tipped over your head. It felt capitalised. I saw a glint of silver out of the corner of my eye and I knew then that we had to run run run run and just keep running until it hurt to breathe. I pulled at Roger’s arm but he shook me off and wouldn’t budge. I could tell he was embarrassed by my decidedly un-tough behaviour, but I couldn’t have cared less. The crazy man advanced slowly, one hand slightly behind him.

“What did you call me?” he repeated, louder.

Roger smirked.

“A crazy bastard,” he replied calmly like the idiotic arsehole he was.

And then everything happened all at once and it was like BANG! The crazy man leapt forward and the knife came out from behind his back and he stabbed Roger and Roger screamed and he did it again and again and again and I couldn’t move and I couldn’t do anything and the man dropped the knife and ran off and Roger fell to the ground and I couldn’t move I couldn’t move I couldn’t move I couldn’t move I couldn’t move.

--

I hate doctors. I hate how you can read their faces so clearly when they come into the white waiting room and look right at you with a sombre expression on their face. I hate how they move so slowly towards you and the clock ticks in time with their steps. And you know, you just know what they’re going to say.

AN: Right. Another thing I did for school. I guess I can't actually write anything unless someone's threatening me with deadline. Yeah, originally it was a lot more foul-mouthed but I edited it to make it more teacher-friendly.