Waiting

• Veronica Perez-torres, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2016

Hours in the waiting room. Hours that stretch out into days and but seem like years. Not knowing, never knowing. Hours of fear and anxiety, of not being able to predict what will happen next.
The sun sets and rises again and again as I crouch on the hard plastic seats, a random selection of toys scattered around the floor to please small children in the long hours of waiting. Always waiting.
My skin prickles with worry as two nurses wheel a bed past me. The woman in the bed isn’t moving. She has her eyes closed and her hand rests by her side, almost as if she’s sleeping. I look away, knowing the truth but wishing I didn’t.
The worry is sickening, to intense for me to cope with. I want to leave, but an invisible force is pulling me back, urging me to stay on the plastic seat. I give in, to exhausted to move. I have been beaten once again, I cannot escape. The dull lights of the room go blurry and my head bangs against the seat with a snore.

I am not allowed to see, not allowed to say goodbye. It happens so fast, and then a surgeon drags me towards his office to talk. to explain the mistake and it’s consequences. I force myself to look away, I don’t want to listen to what he says, don’t want the truth to sink in. But my ears are oblivious to my commands, and every word slips in, permanently settling inside me.
I wait for the tears to come. Want them to come.
But they don’t.
I have a feeling they won’t for a long time. I have to draw myself to face reality; I can't shelter in the depths of my mind, forcing myself to stop being oblivious of the fact that she’s gone.
I run out of the office, my worn out sneakers squeaking on the polished floors. I want to face away from the facts; the truth that surrounds me in the forms of bustling nurses, beeping machines, and yells hiding the fear that everyone lives with until it really happens. Until they are flung into the middle of a catastrophe, their minds spinning and their legs giving way.
My mind is in turmoil. I sit back down on the plastic seats and feel like kicking a toy next to my foot. If they hadn’t made a mistake, if we hadn’t agreed it was the right thing to do.

Suddenly I hear a cry. It’s soft and faint as if it’s far away. But I know it, recognise it even though I’ve never heard it before.
My hands go cold. I’m trembling because I don’t know, couldn’t possibly guess. I have no idea what it means, and that is one of the scariest things.
The cry echoes through the halls once more and this time I understand.
It is the cry of our newborn son. The cry of life.