She charges into the waiting room with a pinched face leaned-forward tightness it seems she might tumble from the friction inside of her.
White-skinned wrinkled like an un-ironed dress shirt, hair back that’s still flyaway.
She does this twice.
Chargestumbles in face forward, leading the rest of her body to lean toward the secretary’s office tucked away in a small recess into the left past the old staircase of the two story building.
Just a few steps in.
No more than four – five, max.
It’s like a highly aggressive peer.
I think I hear her say to the secretary that she’s waiting for someone.
It’s a psychiatrist’s office, maybe she has a child in with one of the counselors or therapist’s.
It’s almost as if she doesn’t want to be here, like stepping in too deeply will be some form of forced admittance of an imperfection.
That’s the usual mentality when you first set foot into a psychiatrist’s office.
I got over that a long time ago.
But you’re still aware that’s what many people must be thinking.
I imagine it must be the way a scientist would feel entering a curandero’s place of healing.
She’s forced to sit so she does and she flips forcefully through the top magazine that lies on the end table.
Each a flip the exclamation of a paper whip. A punishment.
Whip.
Whip.
Whip as she flips through the pages.
It’s literally too fast to glance much less read anything.
In between page whips as she flips, she leans over and looks at the screen of her smartphone.
It’s an impressively aggressive show of passive waiting.
She puts the magazine down, quick turns around to look at the picture on the wall behind her.
Barely registers it.
An impatient sigh the harsh sound of dried leaves being shaken off a dead brittle-husked tree into a pile of chilled fall dirt escapes her.
She cannot sit still.
Now it’s the smartphone she fingers at.
I’m exhausted just sitting beside her. It’s already been a long day.
And now I wonder, is she waiting for someone? Or is she waiting to be seen?
My eyes grow heavy.
I want to fall asleep so badly …
I must remember to bring my headphones next time.
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