Waiting by Kimberly Demetrio

Writing Prompt: Waiting

This cold, white walled room with uncomfortable seating smells of ben-gay and needs a good dusting. The overhead fluorescent light is sterile and interrogating.  Across from me a fellow inhabitant sits staring out the dusty blinds, every few minutes getting up to stretch.

My coffee is luke warm, reheated from yesterday I am certain, but I do not want to walk to the other side of the building for a fresh hot cup.  I'll finish this swill and wait.  Old Tribunes are available for reading, old news is better than no news I suppose. Are they waiting to be thrown away? The toy area is an anxiety inducing mess. I have the urge to tidy it up while I wait, but instead I sit and stay still.

The sirens are steady and sound afar off, yet I know they are just a couple blocks away.  What went wrong to cause their need? I wait for them to subside, to rest my mind of what has happened to complete strangers. I wait to hear the usual hum of morning traffic.

I look around the room some more.  There are shelves filled with a hodgepodge of eclectic bindings: self-help, jesus centric, foreign language and culture, children, and fiction.  The shelves are as cluttered as the toy area and again anxiety wells up inside screaming for me to get up and tidy these precious, nearly obsolete gems of words on paper. Instead I sit and continue to wait.

Waiting can cause your soul to calm or your fears to bubble up.  Today my waiting is calm even with the anxiety induced surroundings.

Today I wait in my 3 seasons room, writing, and waiting to hear the tiny footsteps of the love of my life.  I wait for my day to brighten just by holding her on my lap as we both sit in our enclosed front porch watching the cat stretch, listening to the traffic, waiting for that moment when our souls decide its time to seize our day.