An Ordinary Doctors Appointment

Fresh Healthy Meals and Good Housekeeping, Sports Illustrated and Vogue, these were few of the magazines flaunting their presence as she sat uncomfortably waiting anxiously for the lab technician to call out her name. The faded carpet had lived relatively a long time warming up with the heat of the sun glaring through the windows. She hadn't left her home in four days so she welcomed this state of affairs. A real honest-to-God live cowboy shared that patient waiting room with her, unassumingly pretentious with a contagious grin. She didn't know what to make of him but contrary to his looks, he seemed worthy of being depended on, free from guile, perhaps an honest man earning an honest wage. She had been waiting for over an hour now, so her mind wandered around searching for validation of her current existence in her past. The cowboy provided invaluable assistance in escaping this in-existential memory search. She trembled, evidence of her fears and her high fever attested to her illness. She reassured herself that she was safe now, safe and free, free from all the pain that she had endured in her past. She was not chemically bound in a molecule anymore nor was she held in servitude. The light-headed teenage girls wearing oversized boots giggled frivolously causing a whirling sensation in her head. A frazzled middle-aged man frayed with friction between him and his insurance agent. Clearly the day had not been kind to him. She was not able distract herself enough to stop the memories from overcrowding her head. She could see Julia, Kristine and herself sit on Julia's couch intoxicated in an imaginative intellectual make-believe world of theater, laughing incessantly without a care in the world. Three of them had grown quite close in just a few months in spite of their worlds having no commonality. Next frame that she saw was the evening she went to the lake with Simon, dangling their legs in water to catch pretend fish. It was such a beautiful day, perfect, like their platonic friendship. Series of images were propagating so rapidly that her eyes could not integrate them. Suddenly, reality struck her veins as the lab tech stuck a needle to draw blood for the test that she had been waiting for, what seemed, forever. It was one of those days, I suppose. Her mind and body were not in sync and refused to interact. In fact, she felt self destructive, dangerous to her own interests, like a kamikaze pilot. But she had no other alternative other than just to get herself out of this phase and open the door to walk to her carelessly parked car occupying two parking spots. It was going to get better, though. She promised herself that confidence, asserting her own sense of optimism onto her conscience. She was a mother, a wife, a daughter, an employee of a prestigious organization. She had a purpose. People counted on her. People counted on her sanity and self composition. She didn't have the luxury of taking a break from life, not anymore. So she drove out of the snow covered parking lot, determined to smile and focused on dinner and bed time routines when she reached home.