The Waiting Room Chapters 1 through 3
The Waiting Room
By: Aleta Gay Grimball O’Brien
Chapter One
The room had no doors. At least, none that Mara could find. She had walked the perimeter three times already, running her fingertips along walls paneled in dark wood polished to a soft glow. There were no handles, no hinges, no windows, only bookshelves that stretched upward into shadows and lamps that cast pools of amber light onto worn rugs.
The room felt less like a prison and more like a library that had forgotten the rest of the world existed. Mara sat back down in the chair she had claimed near the fireplace.
A canvas leaned against her leg. It was large, nearly as tall as she was, wrapped in linen stained with streaks of blue, gold, and crimson. She did not remember bringing it with her. She did not even remember leaving home. One moment she had been standing in her studio, staring at a half-finished painting, the next she had been here.
A clock ticked somewhere. Then another. Then another. She looked up. There were clocks everywhere. Mantel clocks. Grandfather clocks. Tiny brass travel clocks. Delicate porcelain clocks sitting on shelves.
None of them showed the same time.
One read 2:17.
Another 11:43.
A third had no hands at all.
Mara frowned, “That’s unsettling.”
“It isn’t meant to tell time.”
The voice startled her. An old man stood beside a tea cart she could have sworn had not been there a moment ago. He wore a charcoal suit that looked decades out of fashion and polished shoes that reflected the firelight. His silver hair was neatly combed. His expression was kind.
“What’s not meant to tell time?” Mara asked.
“The clocks.”
He poured tea into a white cup, “They tell something else.”
“What?”
The old man smiled, “If I answered every question immediately, there wouldn’t be much reason for you to stay.”
Mara stared, “You expect me to stay?”
“I expect nothing.”
He handed her the cup. The tea smelled faintly of cinnamon and orange.
“Where am I?”
“The Waiting Room.”
“Waiting for what?”
“That depends.”
She groaned.
“You’re one of those mysterious old men from novels, aren’t you?”
His smile widened, “I’ve been called worse.”
Before Mara could press him further, a sound echoed through the room.
A latch. A click. A door opening.
She spun around. There had been no door. Now there was.
A young man stepped through carrying an enormous backpack. He couldn’t have been older than seventeen. His shoulders strained beneath the weight. The backpack was covered in medals. Hundreds of them. Gold. Silver. Bronze. Academic awards. Athletic ribbons. Trophies hung from straps. The young man looked exhausted. His eyes moved around the room.
“Where am I?”
“The Waiting Room,” the old man replied.
The boy sighed.
“Of course it is.”
Mara almost laughed.
The boy dropped the backpack onto the floor. The impact shook the room. Several medals snapped loose and scattered across the rug. Neither Mara nor the old man moved to help. The boy knelt to gather them. As he picked up a gold medal, it crumbled into gray dust between his fingers.
He froze.
Slowly he lifted another.
Dust.
Another.
Dust.
Within moments dozens of awards had turned to powder.
“What is happening?” he whispered.
The old man’s expression remained gentle, “Only the things that can no longer carry their own weight disappear here.”
The boy stared at the ashes gathering around his knees. Mara looked away. Something in his face hurt to witness. Not because of the medals, but because she recognized the look. The look of someone discovering that the thing they built their entire identity around might not be enough.
Silence settled over the room. The clocks continued ticking. The fire crackled softly. Then came another click. Another door. Another arrival.
A woman entered carrying a glass jar. Inside it were hundreds of tiny lights. Fireflies. They drifted lazily through the jar, glowing gold against the darkness. The woman held the jar against her chest as though it contained her heart. And perhaps it did.
The old man set down the teapot. “Welcome,” he said quietly.
The woman looked at him. Then at Mara. Then at the boy kneeling among the ashes. Tears immediately filled her eyes. Not because she knew them, because somehow she did. Mara wondered if everyone who arrived here was carrying something far heavier than it appeared.
Chapter Two: The Firefly
The woman with the jar sat quietly near the fireplace. No one spoke. The room seemed to understand silence. The fireflies drifted inside the glass, casting gold reflections across the walls. Mara watched them. Each light moved differently. Some darted. Some drifted. Some seemed content to hover in place.
“They’re memories,” the woman said softly.
Mara looked up.
The woman smiled sadly,“My children.” Her fingers tightened around the jar, “When they were small.”
The boy with the medals lowered his eyes. No one knew what to say. The caretaker appeared beside the fire. No one had seen him cross the room.
“They’re beautiful,” he said.
The woman nodded, “They’re all I have left.”
The caretaker’s expression changed slightly. Not in disagreement, but in concern. Before he could answer, a tiny click echoed through the room.
The lid of the jar shifted, just enough. One firefly slipped free. The woman gasped, “No.”The golden light drifted upward, slowly, gently, like a floating ember in the sky. Then... it burst, not with sound, with memory.
Suddenly Mara was standing in a kitchen she had never seen before. She saw yellow curtains, cracked linoleum floor and she smelled cinnamon. She saw a little girl sitting at a table swinging her legs while her mother rolled dough nearby.
Nothing important happened. There was no grand speech, no life-changing event. The mother simply reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind the child’s ear. The gesture lasted only a second. Yet the little girl smiled as though she had been given the world.
The memory vanished. The Waiting Room returned.
The woman with the jar was crying. The boy with the medals wiped at his eyes, embarrassed. Mara felt something ache inside her chest, because the memory wasn’t important. That was exactly why it mattered. The room sat quietly for a long time. Finally the caretaker spoke, “The smallest memories are often the heaviest.”
Before anyone could respond, another door appeared. This time it opened slowly. A woman stepped through carrying a small wooden box. She held it so tightly her knuckles were white. Unlike the others, she did not look confused. She looked afraid. The moment she saw the box in her hands, her face lost what little color remained. “No,” she whispered.
The room grew still. The caretaker’s eyes softened, he looked genuinely sad.
“Welcome back,” he said.
Chapter Three: The Box
The woman did not move. She stood just inside the doorway, clutching the wooden box against her chest. The door behind her disappeared. No one spoke, even the clocks seemed quieter. The woman looked around the room as though searching for an escape, finding none. At last her gaze settled on the caretaker, “You said I wouldn’t have to come back.”
His face softened, “I said I hoped you wouldn’t.”
The woman laughed once, a small, broken sound,“Same thing.”
“No,” said the caretaker gently. “It isn’t.”
Silence settled over the room. Mara felt a chill despite the warmth of the fire. The woman looked younger than Mara had first thought. Perhaps forty. Perhaps fifty. Grief made age difficult to measure.
“What is this place?” the boy with the medals asked.
The woman glanced at him, for a moment something flickered in her expression. Pity.
“You don’t know yet?”
The boy shook his head. The woman almost smiled.
“I remember when I didn’t either.”
The caretaker cleared his throat,“Elena.” The warning in his voice was gentle but unmistakable. The woman—Elena—looked away.
The room fell silent again. Mara’s eyes drifted to the box. It was small, plain, made of dark wood worn smooth with age. No lock. No markings. Nothing remarkable. Yet she found herself unable to look away, because Elena held it the way a drowning person might hold a piece of driftwood or a stone, depending on the day.
“You don’t have to open it,” the caretaker said.
Elena’s laugh returned, this one sharper, “That’s funny.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s all anyone has ever wanted.”
The words hung in the air. Mara looked down. The woman with the fireflies tightened her grip on the jar. The boy stared at the floor. Nobody asked what was inside. Nobody needed to. Whatever it contained had spent years being forced into the light by people who did not understand it.
The caretaker crossed the room and placed another log on the fire. Flames jumped upward. Gold light filled the shadows.
“Would you like some tea?” he asked.
Elena looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. The caretaker poured a cup and handed it to her. She balanced the tea carefully in one hand, the box never left the other. Hours seemed to pass.... or minutes. The clocks gave no clues. People talked. The boy spoke about races he had won. The woman shared stories about her children. Mara described paintings that refused to stay the same. Elena said almost nothing, but she listened and slowly, something changed.
The tightness in her shoulders eased. The panic in her eyes softened, not gone, just less sharp, like an animal deciding it might be safe enough to stop running. Then it happened - a soft sound, almost too quiet to hear.
Click. Elena froze. The room froze with her. Slowly she looked down. The lid of the wooden box had shifted, barely, a fraction of an inch, but enough.
“No.” The word escaped her immediately. She set down the tea so quickly it splashed onto the rug. “No. No. No.”
The caretaker rose,“Elena—”
“No!” Her voice cracked. The box trembled in her hands. The lid moved again, another fraction, another click. The room grew colder, not physically, rather emotionally, as though a storm had entered. The fireflies inside the jar dimmed. The medals on the floor turned gray. Mara’s canvas seemed to lose its color.
The caretaker stepped forward.
“What is happening?” Mara whispered. The old man did not take his eyes off Elena.
“Some memories,” he said quietly, “do not wish to remain buried.” The lid opened another inch. Darkness waited inside, not shadows, something else, something unseen. Elena backed away. Tears filled her eyes.
“I can’t do this.”
The caretaker’s expression became infinitely sad.
“Yes,” he said softly. “You can.”
She shook her head, “No.”
The tears spilled over, “You don’t understand.”
The caretaker looked at her with the tenderness of someone who understood far too well. Then he said the words that made the room go completely still, “It wasn’t your fault.”
Elena stopped breathing. The box fell silent. The clocks stopped ticking. Mara realized that some people weren’t carrying just memories, some were heavy burdens,
The lid sprang open, not an inch, not a crack, wide enough to see inside. For a single heartbeat, Mara saw a small bedroom, with pink wallpaper and a night-light glowing in the dark. A child sitting on the edge of a bed. Waiting. Afraid. Alone.
Then Elena cried out, “No!”
The box slammed shut. The sound echoed through the Waiting Room like a gunshot. The vision vanished instantly. The clocks resumed ticking. The fire returned to its normal glow. Everyone stared. Elena’s entire body shook, tears streamed down her face, but her grip on the box never loosened.
The caretaker made no move toward her. Neither did anyone else, some wounds could not be approached, only accompanied.
After a long moment, Elena sat down in the chair nearest the wall and turned the box so that nobody could see it. The room seemed to understand that silence was a form of kindness.
Then came another click, this time not from the box. It was another door. Everyone turned. A man stepped through, perhaps sixty years old, perhaps older. His shoulders curved inward as though he had spent years carrying something heavy.
In his hands was a bundle of rope, miles of it, coiled around his arms, wrapped around his waist, trailing behind him across the floor. The rope was tied into hundreds of knots, in a variety of sizes and some so tight they looked impossible to untangle.
The man’s eyes immediately found the rope. He looked exhausted.
“Oh no,” he whispered.
The caretaker closed his eyes briefly, as if he recognized this burden too.
The man sank into a chair, “I thought I’d buried all this.”
“No,” said the caretaker gently, “You only stopped looking at it.”
The man lowered his head into his hands and for reasons Mara could not explain, she noticed Elena watching him, not with fear or judgment, but with recognition. The kind that exists between strangers who have survived different storms and somehow speak the same language.
The man sat alone for a long time. Eventually his voice broke the silence. “There was a boy.”
No one interrupted. “I was angry.”
His fingers tightened around the rope, “I told myself it wasn’t that bad.”
Another knot appeared, tightening itself.
“I told myself he’d get over it.”
Another knot.
“I told myself a lot of things.”
The room listened. The rope continued to twist, like a snake coiling. Elena leaned forward, not toward her own pain, toward someone else’s.
“You still call him a boy.”
The man looked up. She nodded toward the rope.
“You never said how old he is now.”
The man’s face crumpled, the answer arrived before the words, not a boy anymore.
A man.
Years had passed, the regret had not.
Someone in the Waiting Room understood exactly what he was carrying and for the first time that day, Elena forgot about her box.
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