Waiting Room

There's barely anyone here as I wait and the sky applauds the rain outside. I watch it from my seat, here, by the window. Pathetic Fallacy, they call it. Pathetic.

They've started to turn the lights off and everything is slowly falling into shadows, heightened by the storm clouds outside. People come and go, never talking to anyone else. Except that one. He's strange, the one to my left, he's talking to himself and everyone else and he keeps dropping the phone in his hand as if unaware that it is there at all.

He wasn't alone when he entered, the other left his side and is yet to leave the bathroom. They look like the kind of people you stay away from but want to watch to see what they'll do and how. They have a danger about them that you can't tear away from.

"Who is it this time?" His too loud voice makes me jump, I glance towards him but quickly look away.

"Christine, the grey haired lady."

"Oh, I like her. She's good. She doesn't hurt me."

The receptionist laughs, it's a nervous sound that resonates through the room. I don't move until they call my name.

Room five.

Wired

Wires, born from a small black box with two blinking lights like eyes, slithered up and attached themselves to my skin. And when a button was pressed it would call out in shrill tones, wait for some minutes and call out once more. This thing, this machine, this parasite stuck, remained, held tightly before time bade me pull it free and send it back from whence it came.

It left a residue, then a mark. A mark still pasted to my skin, an off colouring. A claim.

I can't tell you

It hurts. There are no metaphors or similes to twist the feeling into, to give it a meaning deeper than it already has - it just hurts. It aches and it stabs and it makes my head feel empty and light. It makes the world change, become less real. It's a little bit like a dream, the feeling in my head. But it still hurts. I can't change the hurt.

I don't know what it is and that irritates me. I know where it is, I can pin-point it almost exactly. I can tell you what happens when my heart beats faster than it should and what happens when the air refuses to fill my lungs. But I can't tell you what it is.

I can't tell you how much pain I feel or how tight my chest is and how cottony my throat feels. I can't give it metaphors or images. I can't compare it to something you'd understand. I can't tell you because I don't understand. And it irritates me. And I'm scared.

It hurts. And I can't turn it into a story. It isn't one.

Excuses

My fingers move, picking up more reasons to delay the inevitable. The erratic weather cloaks my brain in its very own fog of insecurity. There are so many things I should be doing. But I won't, instead I will find another excuse, another reason why I can't do what I should do and what I need to do.

What happens when you run out of excuses?