Staring blankly at the naked waiting room wall . . . it almost acts as an inner movie screen . . . I sit back and rewind time in my mind. So many flashes up there . . . days fly into weeks into years into memories that seem like a movie of someone else’s life story. I casually nod off into my daydream while staring blankly at the naked waiting room wall. I follow the path I’ve made . . . the one that winds loosely through my history . . .…feeling such an array of things in the span of a few seconds. How do I stop and ponder on one when one naturally leads into another one and another then repeats the pattern over and over again.

Staring blankly at the naked waiting room wall . . . I feel my ass slipping off the pseudo-plush plastic seat while at the same time I become semi-consciously aware of my sloppy slouching posture and a few curious side-glances from the other poor slobs stuck here in waiting room limbo. Where the hell is the doctor? When will they say my name?

Staring blankly at the naked waiting room wall wondering why these journeys into yesterdays don’t come when I am sitting under a tree on a fine spring morn? Why can’t my life be that picture perfect one that was promised to me so long ago in some childhood nursery rhyme? Where’s the White Rabbit to show me the way to Wonderland? I’ve poked so many holes trying to catch that dream but it always seems to allude me, confuse me then loses me when I need it the most . . . like now . . .

Staring blankly at the naked waiting room wall and wondering.

When will they say my name?

---

© 2007 by Johnny Olson. Used with permission.