Tasya
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This particular muted TV was playing an old Western film. Lips moved without sound. Guns fired without any high-pitched twinge, as customary of some Westerns made at that time. All Hugh saw was a soundless scene of a man in black trying to pick up his hat, and nameless gunslinger shooting the hat away from him.
Not being able to understand what the man in black and the gunslinger were saying annoyed Hugh, but it wasn’t as annoying as his seat. The chairs in the waiting room had seat cushions barely more padded than an economy class flight seat, no arm rests, and black metallic frames that not only cradled the cushion, but also rubbed and scraped the outmost parts of the hips. No matter which way Hugh positioned himself in the chair, there seemed to be no way to become comfortable. Even if he had a PhD in advanced Engineering and Physics, Hugh still wouldn’t be able to calculate the optimal sitting position to alleviate his discomfort.
Hugh had a sneaking suspicion that the designer of these chairs secretly visited waiting rooms like this one in order to observe people sitting in his creations. This architect of discomfort and annoyance would sit silently, his thoughts unknowable to others, and get pleasure from patients’ attempts to solve the unsolvable conundrum of how to become comfortable in these chairs.
Hugh squirmed a bit more in his torture device of a chair and looked around. There weren’t too many people alongside him in this indefinite state of waiting. There was a couple, quietly arguing about where to eat after their appointment. A young girl was sitting and reading a book, whose cover depicted a black spaniel wearing a detective hat and coat. Behind the spaniel stood an extraordinarily large red chalice surrounded by menacing and clocked figures brandishing jewel encrusted daggers.
Something more curious than the cover of the girl’s book was that Hugh could not locate the grumpy man from the earlier bathroom encounter. If he had left the doctor’s office then Hugh would have seen him cut through the waiting room. Since Hugh hadn’t seen him, Hugh estimated that the grumpy man had been in the bathroom for well over twenty minutes.
Hugh thought about marching back to the bathroom and giving the grumpy man a taste of his own medicine when he finally opened up the bathroom door. Hugh’s revenge fantasy was cut short when the anticipated and fated moment came to pass.
The receptionist was calling his name.
“Mr. Mekta! Mr. Mekta! Please come to reception desk,” the receptionist was yelling and Hugh could hear a grating frustration in her voice saying that she had been the one waiting for the last twenty plus minutes for Hugh to make his presence at the desk.
Hugh approached the desk, glad to be out of the indefinite state of waiting and out of that horrendous chair.
“I’m Hugh. But, pardon me, my name is not Mekta, it’s Mechta.” Hugh tried to sound polite, not wanting to offend the reception and be sent back to the waiting area as vengeance for said offense. “The 'ch’ in my last name is pronounced like the 'ch’ in 'cheese,' 'cheap,' and 'chicken’.”
The receptionist placed a meticulously manicured nail on his name in the file. She read it over and rolled her eyes at what was written there.
“I’ll make a note of the spelling and pronunciation in your file.” The receptionist said but didn’t make any notes in any file.
“The doctor is waiting for you in room 27.” The receptionist continued. “Please go over there,” she lethargically pointed a nail at an indeterminate position behind her, “and then turn there.”
Hugh peered around the receptionist to see where 'over there’ was. He could see a hallway with four branching corridors.
“Pardon me,” Hugh said, “but what do you mean by ‘over there?’
“What do you mean?” She replied curtly, her lazy demeanor had changed to one that had just been offended. “I’ve just told you where to go.”
She spun around on her chair, extended her arm out at full length, and made various quick movements with the tip of her long nail.
“Go over there, and then turn there.” The receptionist said.
Hugh responded to her attempt at precise directions with a dumfounded expression. Behind this dumbstruck look, Hugh was making the mental calculations of whether it would be advantageous to ask her to elaborate on her directions. After triple checking the results of his mental computations, Hugh decided to hold his tongue.
He simply thanked the receptionist and headed ‘over there.’
Hugh walked down the hallway and past the first two adjourning corridors. He felt relief that the room numbers were descending from one hundred and that all that he needed to do was to go to the end of the hallway and see which adorning corridor led to the twenties.
As Hugh approached the end of the hallway, he could hear the receptionist shouting from behind him.
“Mr. Mekta! Mr. Mekta! I told you already, please go over there! You are going the wrong way! Turn back and turn over there!” The receptionist shouted and tore a piece of a paper, which Hugh hoped wasn't his file, in two.
“Do I go over there?” Hugh called back and shifted his gaze from the reddening face of the receptionist and pointed to the rightmost corridor that he had passed.
“No, to the other one!” the reception cried and tore a small stack of papers, that had magically appeared in her hands, in half.
Hugh walked back towards the two corridors and pointed at the one on his left.
“Yes, Mr. Mekta! That is what I have been telling you this entire time! Don't keep the doctor waiting!” The receptionist threw herself down on her chair with a thumb loud enough to be heard by Hugh down the hallway.
Hugh turned ‘over there' and pondered whether the receptionist's outburst was in part to sitting on a chair crafted by the architect of discomfort.
Hugh entered room 27 and no one was there.
Hugh was both relieved and agitated. Relieved that he hadn't kept the doctor waiting. Agitated that he was forced to play the waiting game again.
Hugh sat down again, but this time straddling the edge of the chair like a trapeze artist on a tightrope. He tried to embody this performer's balance, poise, and grace as he sat along the thin line of comfort and falling off the chair. Unlike the trapeze artist, who plays the game of life and death while performing in air, Hugh continued to play the most irritating game of them all—the waiting game.
Hugh always thought of himself as a person who fell into the laid-back category. There were only a few things that he really disliked; things like pickles, store assistants who swarm you upon entering a store, ice covered sidewalks in the winter, and shoes that grip your toes too tightly. None of these things, however, compared to how much he disliked waiting.
It wasn't all forms of waiting that he disliked. He was fine with waiting for the bus, the metro, or for a barista to brew his coffee. Tension would wrap around chest whenever he had to wait without knowing when the result of his waiting would come to fruition. Hugh always assumed that this was because such situations stole away his ability to control the situation and choose how to act in a given situation. When waiting, he felt that he was being forced to choose without having any alternatives of choice.