Shifting Waiting Room Ideas Novels & Stories

Catherine walked back and forth in the tiny waiting room by the conference room, her high heels making loud sounds on the shiny floors, increasing her nerves. The hospital's flickering bright lights shone above her, lighting up her way but failing to lift her spirits. She had instructed her Personal Assistant to go on a secretive task, leaving her with nothing else to do but wait. Every moment the clock ticked was a signal of the chaos whirling in her head.

He responded in thirty seconds. How are you? I looked at the message. Present, I typed back. Which is the right thing to be. He sent back one word. Yes. I put the phone down. The waiting area was ordinary. The specific quality of clinical spaces that held the weight of dozens of different people's significant moments without being designed for significance. Plastic chairs. Fluorescent light. The ambient sound of a building doing institutional things. I sat in it and thought about two years ago when Riley had come off a surgery and straight to the compound to stand in front of the club on crutches and tell them she was not quitting.

And what it would mean when there were no more steps left to delay anything. We were told to wait. So we did. The waiting room was quiet and too neat. The kind of place where people didn’t come to relax—they came to find answers they weren’t ready for. I sat on one of the chairs, my hands folded tightly in my lap now instead of resting on my stomach. I didn’t know when I had moved them, but I had. Clara sat beside me. Maya stood near the wall, arms crossed. Daniel sat slightly apart, but his eyes kept coming back to me.

The carpet gave way to linoleum and the bland artwork to bare walls as the hospital gave up pretending to be anything other than what it was. The waiting room was fronted by a frosted glass strip giving the illusion of privacy to those within. As he approached the door, he saw Cameron and Heath talking to a red eyed human couple, whilst Rhett fidgeted in the background. There were many other humans in the room, all comforting each other, and everyone looked up at Talen as he entered, their expressions fading from anxious to confused - other than his mates who looked relieved to see him and broke off their conversation to meet him at the door.

The most amusing part is that neither of them wants to admit that what unsettles them isn’t the lack of space, but the fact that it forces our bodies so close that the smallest movement turns into an electric brush of contact. The room holds nothing more than a narrow bed and a chair shoved into a corner by a small window, but since we’re condemned to wait hours until we can force the lock or help arrives, we end up in an awkward balance where every move requires an improvised choreography to avoid bumping into one another… or to bump into each other exactly when I decide. “We could organize ourselves,” I suggest, my voice soft, wearing the smile I know puts them on guard, “because otherwise

Like if I was running a load of laundry, best believe I’ll be washing the bathroom floors. I’m not sure how many minutes go by with just glaring at the speakers– not a single crackle come through them by the way. The idea to leave the waiting room makes me jump to my feet. Trisha never said we couldn’t go out without hearing our names. Besides, this could be a great opportunity to wander, gather Intel, be a great agent. I pat myself on the back for my reasoning. The door gives under my touch, the long hallway empty. Swinging my head this way and that, the coast is clear. I start moving straight. There are other doors with numbers above them, all of them have dull music coming from under.

She let that sit for a second, then reached over and squeezed his knee once before he pulled out of the space. The waiting room, when they got there, was nothing like the ones he was used to — brighter, louder, a scattering of couples in every stage of the same process, a toddler running determined laps around the chair legs while a woman clearly past her due date watched with the exhausted patience of someone counting down actual days on her fingers. Zachary sat with his hands in his pockets, looking faintly displaced, like a man who'd wandered into the wrong building and was too polite to leave.

Irina sat down. Sasha sat beside her. The family waiting room on the third floor was small and beige and had chairs that were marginally better than the waiting room downstairs and a window that looked out at a parking structure which was not a view designed to comfort anyone but was what it was. They sat in it. Two chairs facing the door. The clock on the wall moved in the specific way clocks moved in waiting rooms — each minute taking considerably longer than sixty seconds to complete, as though time had been informed of the situation and had decided that urgency was not its problem.

"That means people do not have to leave an attraction area simply because they want something to eat or drink." Petra took another step forward, her confidence becoming stronger with every sentence. She could see and feel the excitement of the audience now. And that hardened her courage. "We also considered the waiting experience because nobody wants to spend half their day standing in one line." She moved slowly across the stage again, using her hands to illustrate separate movement. "Our plan creates entertainment around waiting areas, giving visitors something to experience while they wait for the attractions." Petra stopped near the center and faced the judges. "Instead of allowing a lon