The Man in the Waiting Room

Occam's Razor in action.

Justin walked in from the hallway, waved to the receptionist who was registering someone, and took a seat next to the table lamp. The waiting room was dimly lit but not creepy or musty. The forest green walls were a fitting backdrop for the 19^th century painting. The furniture in the room was what you could find in any home, and not at all what you would expect in a waiting room. Music from the overhead loudspeaker was low and smooth, enough to put any waiting patient to sleep.

Justin sipped his coffee and opened up his portfolio of written material. He had a dozen short stories in various stages of edits. He edited some and took a drink of the cooling coffee. In the 30 minutes he was there, three patients had come and four had left. Incoming patients weren’t in the waiting room longer than two minutes before being called back into the inner sanctums of the doctor’s office.

After finishing story number six, Jason packed up his things and was at the door.

“Excuse me, sir?” the receptionist said.

“Yes?”

“Which patient were you waiting for?”

“None,” Justin said.

“Can you come here for a second?”

Justin approached the receptionist window. He glanced at her nametag – Bonnie.

“Yes, Bonnie?”

“If you’re not a patient and you had no patients you were waiting for, then…?”

“Then what was I doing here?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, my wife was a patient about a year ago. I waited for her in this room and it was such an inspiration for my writing I decided to see if it was a fluke or not.”

“Well, was it?” Bonnie asked.

“No, not at all. Just as I remembered it. Relaxing. Soothing. Perfect place for me to write and edit and take a light snooze.”

“That’s nice,” Bonnie said. “Will you be coming back?”

“Absolutely, that is, if it’s all right with you. What do you take in your coffee?”

“A little cream.”

“And the young lady in the corner over there?”

“With sugar only, sir,” said the lady in the corner as she turned around to face him. She smiled.

“I’ll be back and when I come, I’ll have coffee. Deal?”

“Deal. Have a great day.”