The Waiting Room

It's pinks and tiles with magazines and puzzle pieces strewn. There's an immense fish tank on the side. Bright, lively. I suppose meant to distract from the radiating elephant in the room. The woman across the way led a crusade to clean it. She doesn't say the reason why, but we all know it's because the last thing you want to gaze upon is a reminder of life turned to death.

People come in pairs, in twos. It takes both feet to move forward, both souls to move through. Mothers and sons, daughters and fathers, couples and sisters and friends. An elderly couple from Nebraska, a middle-aged woman and her Caucasian son; three women come together with the red cooler of 1:20pm treats; the Asian man and his brownie-bearing mother.

There's only one woman who comes alone. The nurses meet her before she reaches half-way. Because it takes a pair to move forward, to move through.

My week-day pair colleagues make this their space in different ways. Some's shoulders are drawn in with their own waiting room burden; others dose with ease. Fingers leaf through magazines and Wooden's words, frustrated hands fumble at puzzles. There are those that chat.... brain prostate pancreas..... And a hand-full are just happy to wait. I like to think that they are basking in the comfort that those nice little radiation beams will keep the other half of their pair from meeting the dirty fish-tank fate, shoulders drawn open.

And so the four legs (or six if you are the red box treat-bearing trio) sit. A lifetime of people divided by two. A room of anxious, sick, hopeful pairs. Equally awaiting.

I find this unspeakably beautiful: that you can't guess which one until their name is called.