Today’s quick write is from Mike Jung. He’s challenged us to create scene in a health care waiting room.

Bailey sat on his hands, with his feet jiggling rapidly on the tile floor. The red stiff chairs in the waiting room were formed to some large generic body type, not Bailey’s. The back of his fingers were in pain where they were pinched between him and the red plastic. Bailey stared straight ahead, out the door, past the peaceful paintings, down the corridor toward the nurse’s station. Where is Mom? he thought. She should have been here by now.

That morning he was sure everything would be all right. Mom said, “Hey, Mo, don’t worry, OK? Remember what the doctor said–he saw signs of improvement yesterday. Let’s just go with that.”

But after school Mom called him at home and told him to meet her here at the hospital. The nurse in the suit told him to wait here until his mom came. Where is she? Bailey pulled the dry skin off his lower lip, flinched, then licked the droplet of blood that formed. He bit his lower lip and looked up at the ceiling, willing away the tears.