Isn't Waiting Like Death?

There are many different sorts of people in this world, and while you might briefly cross paths with someone strange, it’s usually no more than a few seconds as you brush past them on a busy street, a curious glance, or sometimes even an awkward encounter when your eyes meet by chance. 

But it only lasts a moment, and soon you forget the strangers face, as it clumps into your memory, getting lost in the sea of faces that you take in with each step forward. That's how time works, pushing people in and out of each other's lives, sometimes making it hard to even remember your own name.

Though despite this familiar sensation that you might feel as you walk down the city streets, it’s a relatively normal part of life, one that we become used to.

However there is one place that is the embodiment of that sensation, and that would probably be the emergency room in the hospital.

Filled to the brim with people who you don’t know, all a mixture of faces, from old to young, people in pairs, or sitting alone, some forced to stand as others watch the tv screens with forced interest as it blears some dreary news program, with a mix of anxiety and impatience.

Or at least that was what Sarah was thinking about as she stood off to the side, as near to the corner of the room she could go to while still making sure there was a clear path to the front in case she was called.

She hadn’t bothered to take of her winter coat, hoping it would’ve been a quick visit before her parents would notice she hadn’t come back from school yet, but as she checked her phone, she realized her wait there was reaching the half-hour mark, and if she didn’t want to feel like a baked potato then she’d probably have to remove her jacket sometime soon.

There were so many people crammed in this one space, but as she looked out at them, she regretfully doubted that she’d remember any of them in more than a few days and vice versa.

“Hi there!” a voice piped causing Sarah to start slightly with surprise. Looking towards the voice, she had expected to see a nurse there, but instead, it was a girl who looked to be around her age, with a pale complexion and short, curly black hair.

“Hey,” Sarah replied dimly despite her inner protests to ignore the girl.

“So… what are you here for?” the girl asked, unprompted, rolling back on her heels a bit.

Sarah squinted at her, unsure why she felt like that was an appropriate question to ask a total stranger at a hospital. 

“I’m here cuz’ my brother broke his leg,” the girl continued after a silence in which Sarah had refused to answer. “I can’t seem to find him though, so I’m a little worried.”

She nodded slightly, not wanting to seem rude while also wanting this girl to see that she wanted to be left alone. There was something odd that struck her about the girl though, something that was starting to leave a bad taste in her mouth. Maybe it was the way her brown eyes seemed to flicker to a brassy colour or the way her smile faltered between breaths as her chest heaved in and out, slowly but in a calculated way. 

“Are you alright?” Sarah heard herself ask, her mind unfocused on her own words as she looked out on the sea of people, looking for anyone who would match the appearance of this girl.

“I’m fine! Just a little turned around is all. Are you ok? You’re all alone.”

“Yeah… just, I wish I could talk to someone, though it’s kinda taking forever.”

“I know, I’ve been waiting here for ages. You should probably get comfortable, it’ll be a while.”

Figuring she was right, Sarah finally put forth the effort to take off her coat, though it didn’t seem to make a difference in the long run. Sighing, she turned back to the girl, ignoring the uncomfortable heat.

“So, how’d your brother break his leg?”

The girl looked up in thought as if it was that forgettable of an experience.

“Y’know, I’m not exactly sure.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Well, we were more concerned about getting him to the hospital, so my parents went in the ambulance with him while I stayed behind.”

“Wait, you walked here?”

She shrugged. “I guess. I think I was kinda panicked though since I hardly remember any of it...”

Sarah supposed her story was mostly the same, minus the broken bones and family part, since her own family was probably still at home, calmly waiting for her to arrive. Or maybe they had started to worry by now, but she couldn’t force herself to exit those doors again, to go into the real world again. As torturous as it might’ve seemed, she would rather stay in this weird bubble, this weird world, just talking with a nameless person about their dull experience.

“It’s dark again,” the girl mused out loud, staring out the window. Blinking at the statement, Sarah turned to confirm that it was, in fact, dark outside. Seeing as it was winter though, it wasn’t all that surprising.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure your family will be done soon,” she promised, but the girl bit her lip as she kept her eyes on the window.

“But it keeps getting dark outside.”

“What do you mean ‘it keeps getting dark'?”

“I… I don’t know! It only should’ve been a few hours, but it keeps getting dark and light, over and over and over, but no one ever comes back.”

In other cases, Sarah might’ve labeled the girl as hysterical- which was completely understandable when you considered how long she must’ve been waiting- but something was holding her to take this girl seriously, for better or worse.

Again she took note of the studying breaths the girl was taking, the rise and fall of her chest when she instinctively touched her own chest suddenly desperate to feel herself breath, to feel something.

And she felt it, she felt her chest move, but she didn’t feel like she was breathing. Listening to the other girl, she realized she couldn’t hear her breaths, only see the attempts at it. Sarah wished that lightheadedness was something that could happen right now, that she could faint, or that she could feel anything right now other than the overwhelming heat, and the pain that had started to course throughout her body.

“Hey. You asked why I was here, right?” she asked the other girl suddenly. “I jumped. I jumped off a bridge…”

“But… you don’t look-”

“It didn’t work. So I came here instead, I thought they would help.”

The girl smiled as she desperately shook her head. “But I can see you, so it-”

“You see them too, don’t you? The room isn’t full, not to them,” she nodded towards the doctors. “They can’t see us…”

“No!” The girl shouted, causing only a few people to turn towards them, the same people who held the tired look in their eyes that matched the two girls. “No,” she sobbed, wiping away tears that never came out. “It was my brother, he got hurt, I just saw from a distance, I wasn’t caught in the… I wasn’t beside him… I-”

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t know.”

Sarah nodded slowly, not feeling much of anything. Why had she come here if she knew she was dead? Why had she come here for help after the deed was already done? A painful sob came from the girl distracting Sarah from the thoughts she didn’t want to deal with as an overwhelming sense of guilt washed over her, watching someone who so desperately had wanted to live that she lied to herself for who knows how long.

“I don’t even know who I am,” she shuddered. “I don’t… I don’t-”

Tentatively, Sarah reached out and took the girl’s hand, stopping her jumbled sentences as she looked up into her eyes, looking so lost.

“I’ll stay with you,” Sarah stated decidedly.

“What?”

“We both came here for a reason, didn’t we? We came for help, and… we came because we didn’t want to be alone. We can leave here when we’re ready, but for now, let’s just wait until we are…”

“Are you ok with that?” the girl asked cautiously as if she was worried Sarah would just run off. But despite not feeling ‘ok’ in any other sense, she did feel ok to just wait for once.

“I’m sure,” she answered. “I didn’t wait enough during life, but I’ll wait out death with you.”