The Waiting Room...

The door opened and she walked through. The room was pretty full. The receptionist nodded in her direction, "Take a seat."

"Do you know how..."

"Take a seat."

"Of course but I was just wondering how long..."

"Take a seat."

"But..."

The receptionist cut her off with a look this time and pointed toward an open chair.

She took a seat.

"She doesn't know." An older woman said as she looked up from her knitting.

"What?"

"How long. She doesn't know how long it will be. That's why she wouldn't let you ask. Some people like to pretend they know it all. Instead of looking like they might not know something they'd rather you just didn't ask the question."

At this the receptionist loudly closed a desk drawer and shot a dirty look their way.

The older woman laughed, "Bang all you want. You still don't know."

"How long have you been waiting?" She asked.

"Oh a good long while I suppose. I never go anywhere without my knitting so I've been able to keep myself occupied though so it's not so bad."

She looked around the crowded room. "Are we all waiting for the same thing?"

The woman put down her knitting, "Well now, that's a complicated question really. Or I guess a simple question with a complicated answer."

"Okay..."

"If you were to ask everyone in here there would be more than one answer. See that group over there?" the woman pointed with her knitting needles, "They think they are waiting for something completely different than that group over there," she pointed again to the other side of the room, "and all of these people right here? Well they would be surprised at the thought that they were waiting for the same thing as either of those two groups. And then there are a lot of people in here who never thought at all about it, and just walked through the door and took a seat. And yet, here we all are in the same room."

A younger man in a tied died shirt said, "We are all the same, man. All of us. But they don't want us to see that."

The woman nodded, "Yes, dear."

"Wait, who doesn't want us to see that?" she asked.

"Them, man, them." and with that he nodded off.

"Don't worry about him I think he's still a little stoned. But who am I to judge? I knit, he sleeps, we all pass the time."

She looked at the groups sitting together. They were all huddled talking in whispers watching the receptionist's desk and the door to the inner office closely. 

"They are waiting for their name to be called. That group is pretty sure there is a book back there someone is checking. It must be a really big book, or a really slow reader doing to the checking." the old woman laughed again.

"What about you? What are you waiting for?"

"Me? I'm just waiting my turn. But I have my knitting so I'm not bothered. I once flew all the way to Australia to visit a friend and by the time I got there I had a brand new afghan to give her as a gift. This was before they made you stop bringing knitting needles on planes. I would never be able to make that flight now." the old woman laughed again, "Isn't that the truth?" and she laughed even louder. 

She wasn't entirely sure what the old woman found so funny so she sat back in her chair and looked around the room again. There were a lot of people here ahead of her. She wished she had brought a book. She turned to ask another question but the old woman had gone back to her knitting. She noticed the knitting project for the first time. It was a lovely blue green patterned blanket. It must have been about done since it was draped over her lap, and pooled at her feet, and then trailed down the row of chairs, and over the lap of an older man sitting a row away, and draped over the backs of two other chairs to make a blanket fort for a young boy sitting playing with a wooden train set and then it trailed down the next row.

"How long did you say you have been waiting?"

"Oh a good long while. You might want to make yourself comfortable."