This story grew out of a creative writing exercise I did at Full Sail University about ten years ago. The prompt was something to do with the senses, and we had ten minutes to set a scene. I wrote the first few paragraphs and then had to read it aloud to a class of about fifty other teachers. I was nervous as hell - it was the first time I’d ever read my own work aloud since I my school days. When I finished, there was complete silence. At first I thought they hated it. Then I realized they didn’t. That was the moment I began to believe I could tell stories.
Room tone: the sound of an empty room, or a room in which all the actors are standing silently.
There are many different kinds of silence. There’s the peaceful silence at the top of a hill; the eerie silence of a snowy winter’s night; the comfortable silence as you lie entwined with your lover; the expectant silence before a match-winning play; the reverent silence as the conductor raises his baton.
And then there’s the silence in an oncologist’s waiting room. That’s the silence of dread.
We sit there, twelve of us, six groups of two, not speaking. What’s there to say? We bury ourselves in our phones and Kindles. Some of the older ones flip through actual magazines, ancient, worn copies of Time or Martha Stewart Living. Because if you’re about to die of cancer, you really care about last season’s color for redecorating your living room or a long gone political crisis in the Middle East.
A woman’s phone rings. She answers it in an embarrassed whisper. “I’m, uh, in the hospital, I’ll call you back. No, no, nothing serious. Just… you know… I’ll call you later. Bye.”
She gives us a weak smile as she puts her phone away. Her purse rustles. “Sorry,” she mouths, silently.
Another woman tries making conversation with her friend. She has a strident voice, someone who’s used to giving her opinion on anything and everything. “These doctors, I don’t trust them. They don’t know anything. If God wants me to be cured, I’ll get better.”
We glare at her. She stops talking. Silence returns. We wait.
“Mister… Bornfield?” says a disembodied voice over a speaker. Nasal, electronic, fuzzy. “Room 5. Mister Bornfield, Room 5.”
My neighbor Aaron stands up. He’s the one who’s seeing the doctor, not me. I’m just driving him. He doesn’t want his wife with him. Not yet. Today’s the day he gets his results. They wouldn’t tell him anything over the phone, which I guess is probably a bad sign.
We all watch sympathetically as Aaron goes through the door to the doctor’s office. He turns, winks at me and grins. I can’t help thinking of those World War Two fighter pilots leaving on a mission, not knowing whether they’ll come back, but determined to be cheerful anyway. We wonder if he believes it.
The door clicks shut and locks, ka-thunk. Silence returns. Is it me, or did the silence get louder, thicker, more oppressive?
I go back to my Kindle, but I can’t focus on the words. I play Solitaire on my phone. I lose, repeatedly. I check Facebook. Usual crap. Read the news. Same old, same old. Back to the Kindle.
I have no idea how long Aaron was gone. Ten minutes, twenty? We all look up as the door swings open, click-whirr. When they come back, you don’t have to ask. You can see it in their eyes. For some, a death sentence. For others, relief. For most, a glimmer, just a glimmer, of hope.
“Fancy a beer?” he asks. “I could use a beer.”
I nod.
We leave.
Silence returns.
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