The Hot Spot!

(Write a story about an established group of people welcoming (or not welcoming) a new face into their midst.)

Sarah is so tired, so very tired, of these annoying medical appointments. Simple answers, that’s all she really wants. Just give it to me straight but they talk in medical terms, the printed reports she receives are just full of words and descriptions she has no idea about. When she goes on the computer to look up the words, it gets even more confusing the more she reads. A simple term could be a condition that one patient barely notices but may hospitalize a different patient. Where does she fit in all of this medical jargon? This medical gobbledegook!

Why can’t they just say it? Whatever “it” is! Knowing would be so much better than waiting and wondering! All of this poking and prodding, and for what? We are six months into visiting one specialist after another and still no closer to answers.  

What new test to try, more blood draws, scans and scary sounding things like biopsy. She felt like a veritable pin cushion the number of needles she had endured. It makes her skin crawl and her head hurt. She wonders if anyone ever died of worry alone.

Making her way now from the examining or treatment room to the changing area where her personal things are locked in a locker, she shivers. Sarah begins to be positively cold! Maybe germs cannot live in this cold atmosphere. Sarah shivers and holds her scanty hospital gown closed as best as she can.

She knows it is a very hot day today and this is a huge facility to keep cool but this is just too cool for comfort. She almost laughs now at the thought of developing pneumonia while being here for something much simpler.  

She hopes that the waiting room where her husband waits for her is warmer. She doesn’t want to listen to him complain the whole drive home. He will already be in a bad mood as he hates doctors and hospitals and will repeat every negative or tragic anecdotal story he has ever heard about hospitals. Sarah begins to think he is correct. She begins to agree with him.

She hurriedly dresses and pulls her light sweater closer around her body. Checking out her hair and general appearance in the full length mirror she is satisfied she is ready to go to the conference with her primary physician. It is time she insisted on some kind of answer and will not leave until she understands things.  

Checking the locker one more time and patting her pocket for her keys and cell phone, she gathers her purse to go. She feels ready to turn in the key and get on with the consultation.

Going out through the big stainless steel double doors Sarah thought she felt a light coating of frost on the door surface but she is distracted by a woman she is passing that seems dazed and confused. The woman mumbles something about or it sounded like, “nothing is as it seems!” That poor woman needs some solid answers too it would seem.

The attendant at the desk takes her locker key and goes through the routine checklist of personal information. Everything you do here they ask you to repeat your name, date of birth and insurance information. It makes you nervous, it makes you wonder if they have lost people or mixed up folks in treatments. I guess in medicine you must be very careful, when you are ill you become so fragile.

“Just have faith Sarah”, I say to myself, “better safe than sorry, I guess!”

The attendant took the key, gave Sarah her results folder and directed her to the reading lounge.  

The attendant adds, “when you are finished reading, should you have any questions, and some folks do, please come back to this desk.” “Otherwise, if you are trying to get in your steps for today, the stairs are through the door on your left, or the elevator is through the door on your right.”  

She smiles a gentle smile as she hands Sarah her folder. Sarah thinks to complain to her about the cold but then decides she is sure the attendant has no control over the facility temperature. Drawing her sweater tightly around herself, she goes in search of the reading lounge. The further she goes in this direction the colder it seems to get.  

The reading lounge is very small to be called a lounge Sarah thinks, it is only a small room with a door at each end. Only three chairs and no magazines or tv. She wonders if she is waiting for her doctor or if someone will take her or direct her to his office. It is unusual for them to give the patient the results without medical staff to explain.

Sarah sits, her teeth are almost chattering, she digs around in her purse for her reading glasses. Should she wait for someone? Sarah then decides to open her folder to see if she has any questions on the results . There are only a few lines of type.

YOU HAVE DIED!

BUT DO NOT FEAR GOING TO THE HOT SPOT OR BURNING IN HELL!

HELL IS COLD, VERY VERY VERY COLD!

HAVE A GOOD DAY!

Please remember, stairs on the left, elevator on the right, both only go DOWN!

As Sarah begins descending the steps, she sees a group of people far at the bottom of the stairwell. They are all looking up and seem to be talking all at the same time. It begins to sound like a lament, like they are wailing ! Their breath puffs out like huge clouds of frost or snowflakes. The snow flakes settle back down on top of them. The more they wail, the harder it snows.

Sarah feels dazed and confused and she can’t quite make out what they are saying but they seem to be welcoming her! 

Perhaps they want the scant bit of residual heat Sarah still contains. 

Or perhaps they are just curious.  

Curious to see if anyone they know is going to hell today!