The room feels vacant and vacuous; an ironic sense given that the reason that I remain here is that the smaller room off to the side is currently occupied. I sit in the doctor’s waiting room surrounded by high, plain, bright yellow walls. The walls and indeed the rest of the room are strangely clean and stringently organized. The space and feel of the room strikes me more of a designer handbag store.
It is certainly more palatable than the majority of hospitals or surgeries I have frequented. There lacks that familiar, unsettling smell; a scent that acts as a constant reminder that you are in the presence of the sick and that you have been condemned as one of them.
Yet, there is something uneasy about the room. A slightly-beyond middle-aged woman sits surrounded by a white desk off to my left. She flickers knowingly through patient’s files and when the phone rings answers with a monotone, but not unfriendly, greeting. There is something very British about her phone manner. It is polite, but to the point. In the U.S., I recall, a receptionist would be much more uplifting. Even though I realize that the greetings I recollect were likely down to some laborious customer relations training, it evokes a sense of yearning for the cheery Californian manner.
Perhaps it is this all-too-familiar woman that disturbs me: she is a reminder of where I am, and where I am not.
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