(no subject)
"the waiting room"
Vincent's appointment was scheduled for 12:45 in the afternoon. He arrived fifteen minutes early for the appointment. The office and the waiting room were cold, so Vincent did not take off his sweater. He passed right by the coat hangers behind the front door. He walked to the front desk and informed the woman sitting there that he had arrived early for his appointment. She told him to sign his name in one of the boxes on the sheet of paper before him and gave Vincent a number of forms attached to a wooden clipboard.
"Fill these out, please," the woman said without looking at Vincent.
"I don't have a pen," Vincent said to the woman.
The woman was staring at one of the files on her desk. Without moving her head, she reached for a pen in her pocket and extended it in Vincent's direction.
Vincent turned around and looked at the small waiting room in Dr. Sutherland's new dental practice. Eight chairs were in the room. Five were lined along the wall with the window and three were on the other side by the medium-sized aquarium. Sixteen fish swam through small stone statuettes and castles. Small plants swayed with the currents in the water. A table that contained a number of different types of magazines was between the third and fourth chair in the row under the window. Vincent looked at the fish and the water in the aquarium. He sat underneath the window by the magazines.
When he completed the forms that were attached to the clipboard he walked back to the desk. He saw that the woman was gone, so he left the papers in the middle of her desk on top of some of her files and walked back to his seat across from the aquarium. He kept the pen that the woman had given him.
Vincent pulled his water-damaged book out of his large coat pocket and began to read. The clock read 12:41 in the afternoon. He read his book and made notes feverishly and hurriedly in the margins with the woman's pen. When he would read something important on one of the pages of his book, he would uncap the pen. He read quickly and would hold the pages tightly in his hands, loosening only when he needed to write something.
So Vincent was scribbling in the top-right corner of one of the pages when the woman said something from behind her desk.
"Excuse me, Vincent?" the woman called.
He finished scribbling the line he was working on in the book and looked up at the clock that was a few feet to the left of the aquarium. "What is it?" Vincent asked. The clock read 12:51 in the afternoon.
"I need your insurance information," the woman said. "You didn't write down any of your insurance information."
"I am paying for all of it today," Vincent said. "My insurance usually works on compensation. Do you still need it?"
The woman smiled and said nothing. She walked to where Vincent was sitting and handed him a form attached to another wooden board. While she was walking away, she started to whistle a strange melody. The sound of the song made Vincent turn his head back in the woman's direction.
When the woman sat back down behind the desk and did not turn towards Vincent, he sighed to himself, set his book with the notes in the margins on the table with the magazines, and started with his insurance information. The pen he was writing with was placed in the book as a bookmark. He used another pen that came with the clipboard to fill out the new insurance forms.
After he had filled in the name of his insurance company, two women and a young girl walked into the office. One woman was considerably older than the other woman. The young girl was very small. After hanging their coats on the hooks by the front door, the younger woman and the child considered the fish in the aquarium while the older woman walked towards the desk. She talked to the woman at the desk about cows and grandchildren and then sat in one of the seats by the window.
When Vincent finished filling out the insurance information for the woman he walked back to her desk and left the forms on the top of the desk. The woman was there looking at more files, so Vincent did not say anything.
She kept with the same melody, too, but this time the woman behind the desk was humming instead of whistling.
When Vincent returned to his seat he sat and began reading his book again. He made more notes in the margins. If a note happened to fill out the entire page, he would turn to the inside cover and make a note for himself of the page number and general idea of the marginal reminder. Then he would finish the note in the margin in the cover of the book.
Vincent finished a page and then looked at the clock. It read 12:56 in the afternoon. The child tapped her fingers on the glass of the aquarium and watched the fish swim around and around through the currents, frightened and frantic. The girl stood on one of the three chairs on that side of the room. The young woman with her stood behind the child and watched the fish swim, smiling and running her fingers through the young girl's hair.
Vincent started to write when he stopped and turned his head. The older woman two chairs down from him was looking in his direction. She was looking very noticeably in the direction of his book. It took her a few moments to realize that Vincent was looking back at her. When she did recognize Vincent's glance, she smiled and straightened her body.
"The walls are so white here," the older woman said.
"I'm sorry?" Vincent said.
"The walls are very nicely painted," the woman said. Then she repeated more slowly her last statement: "The walls. They are so white here in this office."
"Like teeth," Vincent said after some hesitation. He looked back towards the aquarium and shuffled his feet uncomfortably.
"I'm a painter," the woman said. "I paint all kinds of things."
Vincent did not say anything. The clock read 12:59. The older woman looked down at Vincent's book again. When he noticed the same glance as before, he put the book in the crook of his elbow and held it very close to his body so that it would be hidden away from the older woman.
The woman continued: "I mostly paint houses and walls and sidings. People usually pay me to do it."
Vincent smiled in her direction, but did not look into her eyes.
"Are you an artist, too?" the older woman said after a pause. At this, the younger woman turned and looked at Vincent, smiled strangely, and patted the child on her head.
"I'm sorry?" Vincent said. He looked first at the older woman, then he turned to the younger woman. Then he turned back to the older woman.
The clock hit 1:00 and the woman from the desk came and called Vincent's name loudly. He shrugged his shoulders to the older woman and quickly moved towards Dr. Sutherland's office. An archway curved above the floor to form a doorway into the office and the work rooms. Vincent passed through it.
But the woman stopped Vincent shortly after he passed through the doorway. She said his name when she did it.
"Vincent, you can't take that book back in to see the doctor," she said.
"No, it's my book," Vincent said.
"Yes," the woman said, "but the working room is supposed to be a sterile environment at all times. You cannot bring a stained and damaged book in there. It will be in the way of the dentist's movements, anyway. Leave it out here in the waiting room. It'll be just fine."
Vincent hesitated for a few moments and looked back towards the three women in the waiting room. The child was now reading a Highlights magazine from the table with the reading material. The younger woman was doing her makeup and touching the bottom of her hair with her hand. The older woman was studying the paint on her fingernails. She smiled when she noticed that Vincent had looked back. The other two did not look in his direction at all.
Vincent took off his sweatshirt and walked hurriedly to the coat hangers by the door. "Okay," he said.
He pulled the hood out of the sweater and hung it on one of the hooks. He placed his book in the pocket of the sweater and made sure that the pocket was as closed as a pocket that did not have a zipper could be. Then he walked back towards the doorway and the woman from the desk.
"I'm ready," he said, careful not to look back in the direction of the women in the waiting room.
Vincent's meeting with Dr. Sutherland lasted only 29 minutes. He looked at the clock as he left the small room with the chair and the dentist. It said 1:29 in the afternoon. Vincent walked back to the desk with the woman and asked how much his balance would be after the appointment and the work that he would return to have done within the next few days.
"Do you need to schedule another appointment for that work?" the woman said to Vincent.
"Yes," Vincent said. "Can I pay for everything now?"
"When would you like to schedule the appointment?" the woman asked.
"I don't know," Vincent replied. "Whenever you have an open space."
"How about next Friday?" suggested the woman.
"That's fine," said Vincent. "Can I pay for everything today, though?"
The phone on the woman's desk rang and she motioned with one of her hands towards Vincent. Then she picked up the phone.
"Just a moment," she said into the telephone. Then she looked back at Vincent and said, "I'm sorry, what now?"
"Can I pay for both of my appointments today?" Vincent repeated.
"Oh," the woman said. "Not today. You can pay for both of them next Friday, after everything has been completed."
Vincent started to protest but then decided against it. He put his right hand on the back of his neck and turned away from the woman without thanking her. He walked back through the doorway and into the waiting room. All three of the women were gone, but the fish were still swimming rapidly. The clock on the wall beside the aquarium had stopped. It suggested that the time was just after one o'clock in the afternoon.
Vincent stopped and surveyed the room. Then he walked back through the doorway in the direction of the Dr. Sutherland's office and all of the rooms with the chairs, where the dental work was done. As he did so, the woman at the desk stopped him.
"Excuse me," she said.
Vincent turned. "Yes?" he said.
"Did you forget something?" the woman asked.
"Oh," he hesitated. "No, I was just curious about something."
"Well," she said. "You can't go back there while the dentist is at work."
Vincent walked back through the doorway and into the waiting room again. The women were still gone. He walked slowly through the room, and stopped when he was close to the clock and the aquarium. The clock had stopped just after 1:00. The fish were swimming as they were when the young girl was chasing them with her finger along the glass. They were darting back and forth through the currents.
Vincent walked back to the coat hangers for his sweatshirt and his book with the many margins and the many notes in those many margins. He took his sweatshirt off the hook that it was on and he threw it on over his head. The sweater did not seem to fit Vincent like it did before he went in to see Dr. Sutherland. And his book and his notes were not in the pocket.
He tried to make his sweater fit comfortably. He stood near the door to the outside with a look of surprise and frustration on his face. He was fumbling with the zipper when the door opened and hit him in the back.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said a young women through the door. "Is this the chiropractor's new office? Dr. Stevenson?"
"No," Vincent said. "It is something else entirely."
The woman giggled and left. The door closed behind Vincent. He started walking towards the doorway to the dentist's office and the work rooms again, but the woman at the desk stopped him again shortly after he had passed through the archway.
"Excuse, me--" started the woman.
"I did forget something," Vincent said.
The woman asked what he'd forgotten.
"My book," said Vincent.
The woman asked what the book looked like.
"It looks like a book," Vincent said loudly and angrily.
The woman asked what color the book was.
"White," Vincent responded. And then Vincent said with sarcasm, "like the beautifully painted walls in this beautifully painted office."
The woman at the desk smiled and told Vincent that if any type of white book turns up at the office, she will be sure to telephone Vincent and let him know about it.
Vincent stared at the woman at the desk with his mouth wide until her telephone rang again.
"Dr. Sutherland's office," she said.
Vincent attempted to fix his zipper once more and then walked slowly towards the door to the outside. He stomped his feet hard onto the floor of the waiting room as he did so. As he started to open the door the woman at the desk yelled in the direction of Vincent. He did not hear her clearly except for something about filling out more paperwork for his next appointment. He opened the door fully and looked outside at the falling whiteness of the snow, and then he left.
Vincent's appointment was scheduled for 12:45 in the afternoon. He arrived fifteen minutes early for the appointment. The office and the waiting room were cold, so Vincent did not take off his sweater. He passed right by the coat hangers behind the front door. He walked to the front desk and informed the woman sitting there that he had arrived early for his appointment. She told him to sign his name in one of the boxes on the sheet of paper before him and gave Vincent a number of forms attached to a wooden clipboard.
"Fill these out, please," the woman said without looking at Vincent.
"I don't have a pen," Vincent said to the woman.
The woman was staring at one of the files on her desk. Without moving her head, she reached for a pen in her pocket and extended it in Vincent's direction.
Vincent turned around and looked at the small waiting room in Dr. Sutherland's new dental practice. Eight chairs were in the room. Five were lined along the wall with the window and three were on the other side by the medium-sized aquarium. Sixteen fish swam through small stone statuettes and castles. Small plants swayed with the currents in the water. A table that contained a number of different types of magazines was between the third and fourth chair in the row under the window. Vincent looked at the fish and the water in the aquarium. He sat underneath the window by the magazines.
When he completed the forms that were attached to the clipboard he walked back to the desk. He saw that the woman was gone, so he left the papers in the middle of her desk on top of some of her files and walked back to his seat across from the aquarium. He kept the pen that the woman had given him.
Vincent pulled his water-damaged book out of his large coat pocket and began to read. The clock read 12:41 in the afternoon. He read his book and made notes feverishly and hurriedly in the margins with the woman's pen. When he would read something important on one of the pages of his book, he would uncap the pen. He read quickly and would hold the pages tightly in his hands, loosening only when he needed to write something.
So Vincent was scribbling in the top-right corner of one of the pages when the woman said something from behind her desk.
"Excuse me, Vincent?" the woman called.
He finished scribbling the line he was working on in the book and looked up at the clock that was a few feet to the left of the aquarium. "What is it?" Vincent asked. The clock read 12:51 in the afternoon.
"I need your insurance information," the woman said. "You didn't write down any of your insurance information."
"I am paying for all of it today," Vincent said. "My insurance usually works on compensation. Do you still need it?"
The woman smiled and said nothing. She walked to where Vincent was sitting and handed him a form attached to another wooden board. While she was walking away, she started to whistle a strange melody. The sound of the song made Vincent turn his head back in the woman's direction.
When the woman sat back down behind the desk and did not turn towards Vincent, he sighed to himself, set his book with the notes in the margins on the table with the magazines, and started with his insurance information. The pen he was writing with was placed in the book as a bookmark. He used another pen that came with the clipboard to fill out the new insurance forms.
After he had filled in the name of his insurance company, two women and a young girl walked into the office. One woman was considerably older than the other woman. The young girl was very small. After hanging their coats on the hooks by the front door, the younger woman and the child considered the fish in the aquarium while the older woman walked towards the desk. She talked to the woman at the desk about cows and grandchildren and then sat in one of the seats by the window.
When Vincent finished filling out the insurance information for the woman he walked back to her desk and left the forms on the top of the desk. The woman was there looking at more files, so Vincent did not say anything.
She kept with the same melody, too, but this time the woman behind the desk was humming instead of whistling.
When Vincent returned to his seat he sat and began reading his book again. He made more notes in the margins. If a note happened to fill out the entire page, he would turn to the inside cover and make a note for himself of the page number and general idea of the marginal reminder. Then he would finish the note in the margin in the cover of the book.
Vincent finished a page and then looked at the clock. It read 12:56 in the afternoon. The child tapped her fingers on the glass of the aquarium and watched the fish swim around and around through the currents, frightened and frantic. The girl stood on one of the three chairs on that side of the room. The young woman with her stood behind the child and watched the fish swim, smiling and running her fingers through the young girl's hair.
Vincent started to write when he stopped and turned his head. The older woman two chairs down from him was looking in his direction. She was looking very noticeably in the direction of his book. It took her a few moments to realize that Vincent was looking back at her. When she did recognize Vincent's glance, she smiled and straightened her body.
"The walls are so white here," the older woman said.
"I'm sorry?" Vincent said.
"The walls are very nicely painted," the woman said. Then she repeated more slowly her last statement: "The walls. They are so white here in this office."
"Like teeth," Vincent said after some hesitation. He looked back towards the aquarium and shuffled his feet uncomfortably.
"I'm a painter," the woman said. "I paint all kinds of things."
Vincent did not say anything. The clock read 12:59. The older woman looked down at Vincent's book again. When he noticed the same glance as before, he put the book in the crook of his elbow and held it very close to his body so that it would be hidden away from the older woman.
The woman continued: "I mostly paint houses and walls and sidings. People usually pay me to do it."
Vincent smiled in her direction, but did not look into her eyes.
"Are you an artist, too?" the older woman said after a pause. At this, the younger woman turned and looked at Vincent, smiled strangely, and patted the child on her head.
"I'm sorry?" Vincent said. He looked first at the older woman, then he turned to the younger woman. Then he turned back to the older woman.
The clock hit 1:00 and the woman from the desk came and called Vincent's name loudly. He shrugged his shoulders to the older woman and quickly moved towards Dr. Sutherland's office. An archway curved above the floor to form a doorway into the office and the work rooms. Vincent passed through it.
But the woman stopped Vincent shortly after he passed through the doorway. She said his name when she did it.
"Vincent, you can't take that book back in to see the doctor," she said.
"No, it's my book," Vincent said.
"Yes," the woman said, "but the working room is supposed to be a sterile environment at all times. You cannot bring a stained and damaged book in there. It will be in the way of the dentist's movements, anyway. Leave it out here in the waiting room. It'll be just fine."
Vincent hesitated for a few moments and looked back towards the three women in the waiting room. The child was now reading a Highlights magazine from the table with the reading material. The younger woman was doing her makeup and touching the bottom of her hair with her hand. The older woman was studying the paint on her fingernails. She smiled when she noticed that Vincent had looked back. The other two did not look in his direction at all.
Vincent took off his sweatshirt and walked hurriedly to the coat hangers by the door. "Okay," he said.
He pulled the hood out of the sweater and hung it on one of the hooks. He placed his book in the pocket of the sweater and made sure that the pocket was as closed as a pocket that did not have a zipper could be. Then he walked back towards the doorway and the woman from the desk.
"I'm ready," he said, careful not to look back in the direction of the women in the waiting room.
Vincent's meeting with Dr. Sutherland lasted only 29 minutes. He looked at the clock as he left the small room with the chair and the dentist. It said 1:29 in the afternoon. Vincent walked back to the desk with the woman and asked how much his balance would be after the appointment and the work that he would return to have done within the next few days.
"Do you need to schedule another appointment for that work?" the woman said to Vincent.
"Yes," Vincent said. "Can I pay for everything now?"
"When would you like to schedule the appointment?" the woman asked.
"I don't know," Vincent replied. "Whenever you have an open space."
"How about next Friday?" suggested the woman.
"That's fine," said Vincent. "Can I pay for everything today, though?"
The phone on the woman's desk rang and she motioned with one of her hands towards Vincent. Then she picked up the phone.
"Just a moment," she said into the telephone. Then she looked back at Vincent and said, "I'm sorry, what now?"
"Can I pay for both of my appointments today?" Vincent repeated.
"Oh," the woman said. "Not today. You can pay for both of them next Friday, after everything has been completed."
Vincent started to protest but then decided against it. He put his right hand on the back of his neck and turned away from the woman without thanking her. He walked back through the doorway and into the waiting room. All three of the women were gone, but the fish were still swimming rapidly. The clock on the wall beside the aquarium had stopped. It suggested that the time was just after one o'clock in the afternoon.
Vincent stopped and surveyed the room. Then he walked back through the doorway in the direction of the Dr. Sutherland's office and all of the rooms with the chairs, where the dental work was done. As he did so, the woman at the desk stopped him.
"Excuse me," she said.
Vincent turned. "Yes?" he said.
"Did you forget something?" the woman asked.
"Oh," he hesitated. "No, I was just curious about something."
"Well," she said. "You can't go back there while the dentist is at work."
Vincent walked back through the doorway and into the waiting room again. The women were still gone. He walked slowly through the room, and stopped when he was close to the clock and the aquarium. The clock had stopped just after 1:00. The fish were swimming as they were when the young girl was chasing them with her finger along the glass. They were darting back and forth through the currents.
Vincent walked back to the coat hangers for his sweatshirt and his book with the many margins and the many notes in those many margins. He took his sweatshirt off the hook that it was on and he threw it on over his head. The sweater did not seem to fit Vincent like it did before he went in to see Dr. Sutherland. And his book and his notes were not in the pocket.
He tried to make his sweater fit comfortably. He stood near the door to the outside with a look of surprise and frustration on his face. He was fumbling with the zipper when the door opened and hit him in the back.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said a young women through the door. "Is this the chiropractor's new office? Dr. Stevenson?"
"No," Vincent said. "It is something else entirely."
The woman giggled and left. The door closed behind Vincent. He started walking towards the doorway to the dentist's office and the work rooms again, but the woman at the desk stopped him again shortly after he had passed through the archway.
"Excuse, me--" started the woman.
"I did forget something," Vincent said.
The woman asked what he'd forgotten.
"My book," said Vincent.
The woman asked what the book looked like.
"It looks like a book," Vincent said loudly and angrily.
The woman asked what color the book was.
"White," Vincent responded. And then Vincent said with sarcasm, "like the beautifully painted walls in this beautifully painted office."
The woman at the desk smiled and told Vincent that if any type of white book turns up at the office, she will be sure to telephone Vincent and let him know about it.
Vincent stared at the woman at the desk with his mouth wide until her telephone rang again.
"Dr. Sutherland's office," she said.
Vincent attempted to fix his zipper once more and then walked slowly towards the door to the outside. He stomped his feet hard onto the floor of the waiting room as he did so. As he started to open the door the woman at the desk yelled in the direction of Vincent. He did not hear her clearly except for something about filling out more paperwork for his next appointment. He opened the door fully and looked outside at the falling whiteness of the snow, and then he left.