Waiting

   You wait for small things, you wait for big things.
   You’re not acting, you’re not reacting, you’re not doing anything. You’re just … there.
   You’re in a bubble. All around you, people bustle about, things move, the clock hands sweep in their arc. But where you are, there is no movement, no time. You’re a silent stone, caught in the bubble. You blink, you turn your head, but it doesn’t mean anything. You see the activity around you, you hear it, but it’s an illusion. It’s apart from you. You’re apart from it.
   You try to remember when time passed and you went with it, running, jumping, walking through the days and weeks. Now you just sit. You sigh. You shift your weight a little.
   You wait.

   As you can see, I hate waiting as much as my character Reggie does. I’m not helpless any more than he is, but that doesn’t mean I can control everything around me. Sometimes things don’t happen when we want them to happen, that’s all.
   I’ve had worse waits. I had a health scare once where the wait was made longer by the fact that I was trying very hard not to panic. I ended up studying the vent on a piece of medical equipment, wondering who had come up with that particular pattern, because I honestly had to do something besides waiting. In the end, the news was good so the wait was worth it, but that’s always hard to know when you’re in the actual process of waiting. Is the cat alive or dead? Is the answer yes or no? Are you ready for the outcome?
   All I can do is break the bubble myself. The wait doesn’t define me. I’ll study the patterns around me, connect with the outside world and make myself part of it until the wait has ended.