waiting room 1

The waiting room was tiny. A small cubicle of no beauty or love, it sat there, just in front of the door, and created an impression in any visitor that they should not be here. No paintings or nice photos lined the wall, no memories displayed here. It was a desolate place, barren and dry as an arid desert and dead as a graveyard.

The woman sat resolutely in one of the only two chairs in the room. She sat with nothing in her hand, but a small notebook and a pen. She sat determinedly staring at the opposite wall, waiting for something to happen. There was nothing special about her, she was medium in build, medium in height, medium in looks, medium in voice, medium in beauty, but for some reason, she hadn’t been given the same average measure of thought. She had a tremendous amount of thought in her head, an ecosystem of ideas was her mind. And for some even odder reason, she had a love for children, having none of her own. She found them to be the centre of all life. The child’s mind, according to her, was the most beautiful thing on this planet. Where an adult’s judgement would be fettered and clouded by the shackles and fog of prejudice and bias, the child’s mind was like a breath of fresh air.

And so she had come here, to see a child. A child who had been locked away from society. A child who possessed such godly skills, that he could not be named as human. But as the rest of us are human, and the fact that we have jealousy and envy aplenty was the cause for this child to go into hiding. She needed to know what he had. She needed to understand to a full extent what the – actually, any – child was capable of. The mystery of this child had long ago been given up as being just a hoax and nothing real. But something inside her told her otherwise. And so she had come.

A woman entered the room. She had a small face, with a small, sharp nose, and a small mouth, and had longish hair tied back into a ponytail. Very thin, she carried herself very gracefully, and when the woman in the chair looked up, she was taken aback. The woman’s eyes penetrated her own, laying bare all her hidden thoughts and fears and insecurities right there on the ground of that arid waiting room. Those eyes were large and brown and could penetrate lead.

“Come” the woman made a gesture, and left the room.

The other woman got up and followed her.

They walked out of the deadly waiting room, and moved into a much nicer house. There were paintings here, small watercolours of animals and women, and a sense of perfumed moistness in the air, which made everything pleasant.

Then they reached the door to a room. The door looked exactly like everything else in the house, mildly pleasant, with no ostentation about it.

The woman signalled to not be surprised, and opened the door and walked through. As soon as the door opened, the most remarkable change came over the other woman. Her eyes widened, and her mouth widened, and there was a sense of disbelief in her eyes. On the verge of tears, she ran into the open door, and gasped. The other woman was just standing to one side, watching. The woman dropped her pen and book, and just watched in total and utter disbelief what was in front of her. Right in front of her sat a boy, not older than ten, on a small chair. In his arms was cradled a guitar. And with an effortlessness that is impossible to have been achieved by someone his age, he was coaxing it to produce the most beautiful of sounds. Not complicated or complex, but just divine. The woman now had tears flowing down her cheeks, but she smiled, and then began to laugh. The boy was too deep into his music to pay any heed. She picked up her book and her pen, and furiously scribbled something into it, and showed it to the woman, who just stood watching from the side, completely passive.

“How? How is this possible?”

The woman just shrugged and shook her head. And then she gestured towards the boy, suggesting that she should ask him.

Before the woman could turn to the boy with the book, a small voice suddenly entered her head.

“It is possible because that is what it must be. God doesn’t decide what is impossible and what isn’t. You do.”

The music was still playing, and she took little time to figure out who it was. The boy showed no sign of having said anything, and his eyes were closed now, entrapped in the silken cocoon of his music.

She just shook her head, and closed her eyes too, the music running through her a very odd sensation, but at the same time it was remarkably comforting and beautiful. She just let herself go, trusting completely in the music and the sensation it created in her. Then she thought something, and was just going to reach out to her book and pen, when suddenly the voice entered her head again.

“Do it. It’s not so hard. Project your thought outward. Believe that impossible doesn’t exist.”

A little shaken for a second, she gasped. But then she realised that there was much she didn’t know and she had to try –

“Try not. There is no try.”

Now her jaw truly dropped. Where did such a child get such wisdom? The music was still passing through her, like a symbiotic organism. Then she suddenly realised something. The music wasn’t the same throughout. She hadn’t had any experience with music before this, but her primal instincts told her it was changing not with the boy’s mood, but her own. But shaking her head and throwing out these thoughts from her head, as all they did was bring more questions, she thought about an apple, and pushed it. She had no idea what pushing a thought meant, but she was relying on the music and her instincts, and then suddenly, her thought existed inside her, but she was aware of it also floating around her. And then equally suddenly, it was gone.

“It isn’t so hard is it?”

“No” she replied, at length.

She smiled and let all these new feelings envelop her. Usually she would have felt a deep sense of dread, but somehow, even though everything was alien, the music calmed and soothed her. Closing her eyes, she just trusted in it, and waited.

The other woman heard and felt nothing during the whole course of the intercourse between the boy and the other woman, but that didn’t bother her. Passively, she left the room. Only when she had closed the door behind her did she smile.