Night Life {Watty Awards Finalist 2012}

Chapter 14

As I sat in the hard plastic chair in the waiting room of the emergency room, I wondered why they didn't make hospitals more appealing.

I mean, aside from having a baby, a hospital was usually for sick people or people that were going to be sick or people that were just getting over being sick or people that were going to die.

So why didn't they make the hospital look less dreary?

With the stark white of the walls and the dim fluorescent lights, the scene before me was altogether depressing. If people coming to the hospital were already upset that they were sick or that a loved one was sick, then why enhance those dejected feelings by making the atmosphere even more depressing? In my opinion, the walls should have been painted a soft green color instead of the bright white that was painful to look at. Wasn't green a calming color, anyway?

I looked down at the small white table that was between my chair and the one next to mine. On it were several different kinds of pamphlets ranging from how to lose weight to how to avoiding breast cancer. As if trying to avoid a heriditary disease was possible.

The magazines on the table were no better. They all showed big, bold titles about how to stay healthy, eat healthy, live healthy. Where were the People magazines? Where were glossy Cosmogirl covers? There were supposed to be distractions on this table, not sources that tell us how we could end up in the a sick person's position.

Caleb and I had gotten to the hospital about thirty minutes ago. We rushed into the ER and Caleb went to the lady at the front desk, who looked both tired and bored. He asked what room his brother was in and then he was gone, leaving me in the depressing waiting room alone.

I didn't go with him or ask to go with him. I knew he needed his time. I had no idea what was going on or what had happened, but I wasn't going to ask. He would tell me if he wanted to. He would tell me if he was ready.

I sat alone in the waiting room. There was one other person in there, an elderly lady. She had clear tubes going into her nose and I wondered what function they served. The lady was wearing a baby pink color from head to toe: a pink sweater with colorful flowers embroidered on the chest and matching light pink pants that went up to high when she sat, exposing a pair of wrinkled white socks.

This lady sat across from me and I was regretting taking the seat I had chosen because ever since I sat down thirty minutes, she hadn't taken her gaze off of me. I went through the appropriate stages: feeling incredibly awkward, looking around everywhere but at her, picking up a magazine and finding it disheartening, and then back to feeling immensely awkward.

At the moment, I was just starting right back at her, clutching my bag in my hands.

I noticed that she had blue eyes, or at least eyes that were once blue. They were faded now, like most elderly people's eyes. Her hair was wispy and very white, almost the same shade of bright white as the walls of the hospital. I could see some of her scalp because her hair was so thin. I wondered what she looked like when she was younger. I squinted my eyes a bit, trying to imagine her in youth. As I did, I realized she must have been very beautiful. It was sad though, because now she looked like she was dying.

"Is he your husband?" the woman asked suddenly, pulling me from my thoughts.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"The boy who walked in with you. Is he your husband?" she asked.

"My hus-" I started to say and then I realized she had no doubt noticed the diamond ring that glinted on my finger. "No, he's not. He's just..." I trailed off, not knowing how to describe our relationship. "He's just someone I know," I finished. That was true enough.