Waiting rooms forget the time

In waiting rooms you forget the time. The clock is there, you see the clock, and still you forget. The clock is for other people. You are in a different kind of time, the kind that is measured in the number of pages you have not been able to turn.

I was waiting for news that turned out to be the news I had been preparing for. I was prepared for it the way you are prepared for the weather: I had a coat, I had checked twice, and still when it came I stood in it surprised, the way you are always surprised by rain.

The woman across from me had been crying without making a sound, which is the hardest kind of crying, and when she caught my eye she made the small embarrassed shrug strangers make when they have been seen at the wrong moment. I made the same shrug back. We held each other up for a second, two strangers in fluorescent light, and then her name was called.