Every other week my creative writing group sets an exercise or challenge. Earlier in the year we were set a 500-word challenge using three randomly selected words as prompts. There are no set rules on how the words are used; it’s down to interpretation rather than having to use the words in the text at all.
We each wrote a word on paper, folded it and put it into a cup where the pieces were shuffled and drawn. The words for this particular challenge were: Black, Library, Guardian. This was my effort. It’s titled The Waiting Room:
The buzzer sounded and ten expectant faces looked up to the board. Nine quickly lowered again. Louis huffed as the summoned patient rose and left the room, and then wondered why he should be in such a rush to get through and receive potential bad news anyway. Well, he supposed no one liked waiting even if it was for something they didn’t want to be waiting for.
He half-heartedly scanned the magazine table looking for anything vaguely interesting to skim: Country Walker? Total Tugboat? ‘Yeesh’ he groaned a little too loudly. Several heads turned his way and he pretended not to notice. But then, eureka, he found a copy of the Guardian – yesterday’s copy, sure, but a diamond in the rough nonetheless. He flicked to the crossword page – already completed. Balls.
He was broken from his funk by the tinny sound a mobile phone speaker. He turned in his seat with a grimace, a gut reaction to the abrasive pop. His eyes found the culprit; an auburn haired teen slouched in her chair with her phone on her lap. Louis’s brows met in a united frown but the girl, catching his glare, did not seem to get his message. She looked away uncomfortably then back, finally tilting her head and delivering a scowl herself. Louis tossed the paper down pulling out his own phone. No reception – typical.
His clock had frozen, he realised. He had arrived at 8:44. Apparently it was still 8:44. He cursed Motorola under his breath swiping to his music library for solace and digging in his pocket for his earphones. He’d have to drown the girl out with his own… *beep*. The battery depleted symbol appeared on the screen and then there was black. Oh for the love of... Then, the buzzer sounded again overhead. Doctor Gupta’s light flashed. He looked at his ticket and launched to his feet in relief only to wince in pain and clutch his chest. A sobering reminder of why he was there in the first place.
‘Come in,’ came a lilting voice a brief moment after Louis’s rap on the beech wood door. Doctor Gupta tapped away at her keys as he entered and swivelled theatrically with a tight lipped grin. Louis thought it akin to a parent walking in on their child as they closed whatever web browser they shouldn’t have been on and commenced to type furiously at their half-baked homework. ‘Hello Mr Thompson, do sit.’
‘Thanks. So I woke up with this shooting pain in my chest,’ he began, never one for small talk. ‘And it’s only gotten worse since.’
‘Mm,’ Doctor Gupta stared with large brown eyes magnified by the lenses in their thick tortoise shell frames. She nodded with the feigned gusto of a long time professional. ‘Well let’s have a listen shall we.’
She pressed the stethoscope to his chest and his muscles tensed waiting for the chilly sensation. Strange, he thought, that the instrument wasn’t cold at all.
‘Oh my,’ she exclaimed with a raised eyebrow. ‘Well this is not good. Not good at all.’
Louis felt an icy wave of fear wash over him. ‘Wh-what’s not good?’
Gupta tapped away at the keys on her laptop. ‘Well your heart’s still beating. You shouldn’t be here yet.’
‘What on earth are you talking abo-’. He stopped, mouth open like a goldfish. How exactly did he get here, now that he thought about it? He was driving, and then… and then…
‘Too early for you. Goodbye for now, Mister Thompson,’ Gupta said wheeling her chair close to him. She reached out to his forehead with a gloved hand, and then Louis felt the dreamlike sensation of falling backwards – the primal panic – and then abrupt stillness.
Louis clawed the air as a reflex to the fall. His chest hurt badly and he realised, as he exhaled, that his mouth was masked.
‘Can you hear me? Don’t try to move, sir. We’re taking you into the ambulance now,’ a voice called.
Louis tried to find where the voice came from. There were two women in green pushing him along. The stretcher came to a stop and then lifted, tilting forty degrees; just enough for Louis to glimpse the wreckage of his car, wrapped around a lamppost, a mangled town bike strewn across the road, and the blue body-shaped sheet on the ground with auburn locks sprouting underneath.
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