waiting room

i'm sitting right across empty chairs. the man on my right just left - puffed his last smoke and stubbed his cigarette on the empty metal tray. there's no one here now but me. i look up and there's a thick smoke almost in suspended animation just hanging above my head. the sound of my feet, anxiously tapping on the carpetted floor, is muted. the sullen white walls tell no story except for the line of dirt going towards the metal bin. it must have been by the man who went past by me as i entered the room. the chairs are nothing special either, these are the ones you often see in government buildings -- five gray plastic chairs screwed and welded on two parallel aluminum poles on each row, and all neatly arranged in three rows. the chairs also line the perimeter of the room. if you become aware, you'd also notice that the air inside the room is thick, almost suffocating. but that would seldom happen because a big clock is hanging right above the door. and if you, like me now, are the only person inside, the only thing you can hear is the pompous ticking of the clock, reminding you of the seconds, minutes, hours you've been sitting there, waiting.

that's the thing about being inside the waiting room. you can observe people walking outside through the glass window on the door but you're there inside, sitting, thinking, waiting, and not knowing what else to do.