The Waiting Room Play Novels & Stories

9 LENA The waiting room smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee, the kind that had been sitting in a cheap plastic dispenser for too long. The walls were painted in muted pastels—blue and beige meant to be calming, but under the harsh fluorescent lighting, they just looked sickly. The clock above the receptionist’s desk ticked too loudly, each second scraping against my nerves. I gripped the strap of my bag tighter. My hands were cold, clammy. The receptionist, a woman in her late forties with graying roots and tired eyes, barely glanced at me as she murmured, “You can go in now.”

After being disappointed too many times, that one final disappointment becomes the ending of the whole story. Wiping away her tears, Irina sent Uriah a single-word reply, [Okay.] She had decided, too. ... Three days later, Irina was discharged from the hospital. During that time, Uriah had not sent a single message, and Irina had not reached out to him either. Anne reminded Irina kindly, "Ms. Charlton, even though it was an ectopic pregnancy, you still need to treat this like a recovery period. When you get home, make sure to keep yourself warm, eat nutritious food, and get plenty of rest, okay?"

The waiting room was a stark, impersonal space, filled with the hushed whispers of other anxious families. Kennedy sat beside Tyler, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her gaze fixed on the closed operating room doors. Every minute stretched into an eternity, each tick of the clock a hammer blow against her raw nerves. Tyler, usually so composed, was pacing, his jaw tight, his eyes clouded with worry. In this shared crucible of fear, their personal animosity seemed to melt away, replaced by a fragile, unspoken solidarity.

Someone whose mind had fractured and was simply running on autopilot. "You need to let them work," the nurse said, more firmly now. "She needs room to breathe. You need to come with me." The waiting room was aggressively normal. Beige walls. Uncomfortable chairs. A television playing morning talk shows that nobody was watching. Magazines from six months ago fanned out on a table. The kind of room designed to be institutional and forgettable, except that it was where lives changed. Where people waited to learn whether the person they loved would survive or die.

“I don’t know, honey. Usually not more than half an hour. I’ll keep checking and will call for you when I get it.” Ashleigh gave the woman her name and stepped into the almost-empty waiting room. Picking up a recent issue of People Magazine, she settled into a padded chair. A TV on the wall above her softly chattered with Good Morning America. During the next fifteen minutes, visitors began lining up for passes and the waiting room filled with spouses, parents, and noisy children. As two women across from Ashleigh exchanged graphic details of their recent hysterectomies, a well-mannered, well-groomed eight-year-old boy sitting next to the women, placed his feet together on the floor, folded

“I NEED YOU KNOW MORE THAN EVER.” SOFIA. The nurse nods and takes us both in turn. A quick needle. A small vial. She disappears back through the doors with both samples. And then we wait. The waiting room is not full but it is not empty either. There are other people here with their own emergencies, their own terrible waits. A man with his head in his hands in the corner. An older woman telling her rosary beads beside the window. The particular suspended quality of a place where everyone is waiting for news that will change something.

DOWNTOWN MEDICAL CENTER – TWO HOURS LATER The hospital waiting room smelled like hand sanitizer and pure panic. White walls. Bright lights buzzing overhead. Hard plastic chairs that made your back ache after five minutes. Valentina sat squeezed in the corner, hands twisting in her lap like she was trying to wring out her own nerves. Her knees bounced up and down so fast they looked like they had their own heartbeat. Amelia sat on her left, calm but tight-lipped.

“Come on Cole. We both know that you need the help.” Jamie encourages with a gentle push to get me going. Somehow I manage to step over the threshold and into the thinly carpeted building. Jamie pauses as I look around. We are in the center of a small waiting room. The setup appears to be similar to the waiting rooms I’ve seen on TV. There are several wooden chairs with green cushions placed along the walls of the right side of the room with a large window consisting of two sliding glass panes located to the right of the door immediately in front of us. The left side appears to have been set up to be more appealing to the pups of the pack with a large table in the middle that looks like a ra

He keeps his eyes on me until the very last second, until the doors close between us. And then he’s gone. ----- **7:30 AM - Waiting Room** The surgical waiting room is designed to be calming—soft colors, comfortable chairs, quiet music playing. It doesn’t work. Nothing could make this bearable. Catherine is knitting, her hands moving in a steady rhythm even though I can see tears on her cheeks. James is reading a book he’s been on the same page for twenty minutes. Sarah is pacing. Rebecca is on her phone, probably distracting herself with work emails.

“They’re nicer than you.” The doors slammed shut. ***** The waiting room was purgatory. Plastic chairs, coffee that tasted like asphalt, a TV on mute looping some mindless talk show. I paced instead of sitting, my footsteps echoing in the sterile air. Every time the doors swished open, my chest jerked, expecting her, needing her. Minutes blurred into hours—or maybe it was only twenty minutes. I couldn’t tell. A man in scrubs finally came out. He wasn’t the doctor, just a resident, probably younger than me. His expression neutral. Too neutral.