You sit in a dim green waiting room where the lights flicker off and on every so often. You sit in the front row of several rows of wore out gray folding chairs in the middle of a room, one or two people are scattered behind you in the seats waiting like you. One is reading a newspaper and the other is looking around and watching you. It's quiet except the hum of the lights. Every minute will be the equivalent of 10,000 years. You sit there for nine or ten minutes your impatience gets to you and you get up and look for someone to talk to; you find a nurse behind the reception desk behind the chairs you are in that splits the room into two halls. You shuffle loudly to her desk and stare at her little white hat on top of her head and think she smells like an ashtray and study her blonde, gray curls and wait for her to notice you. She doesn't and you clear your throat at her. She reluctantly looks up at you. "I want to see the doctor I have been waiting a long time." The nurse will look you up and down, "You've only been here for a little bit. Other people have been waiting a lot longer than you." You put your hands on her desk and look around the room, then back to her she's not amused with you assuming you think she's lying to you. "You will be seen as soon as the Doctor can, he is a very busy man." She looks back down at her paperwork you sulk back to your spot in the worn-down gray chairs. Looking around the room, you see a vending machine and a coffee maker. You turn around in the chair and look down the hall one is fully lit and the other on the other side of the reception desk it's a dark hall with flickering green lights. You turn back around and watch the wall in front of you. There are no halls in front of you, you look back around and wait another three or four minutes. Your inpatients get to you, and you make your way to the coffee maker and grab a cup and fill it with hot coffee, taking a sip, you hope it warms you up, but it tastes like water going down your throat. You look at the vending machine, you don't have any money, but you still push a button to see if you can get a sandwich. Surprisingly it offers you up a ham sandwich with mayo and mustard and provolone cheese on white bread with a leaf of lettuce, you can't remember the last time you ate, and its memory sat heavy on your tongue you hurriedly destroy the wrapper and get the first bite in your mouth all the flavors and joy you once knew sat there and brought with it great memories. After that tiny moment of bliss, it turned to ash in your mouth. You didn't understand so you took another bite hoping to get the same euphoria again, it did not come back just ash in your mouth. You sat back down in your seat and waited again. Growing impatient you walked back over to the nurse, "Do something I want to be seen I've been sitting here for so long." The nurse doesn't look at you; you look around the corner at the lit hall and walk down it. There were five doors one was cracked slightly and you could hear something coming from it. As you got closer to it and walked in the door closed behind you. You see yourself and one of your children fighting and you hitting them and the tears that came from it your words are like a forked tongue and are alien to you. The swearing and heartbreaking words that spew out of your mouth hit your child hard, harder than you would ever think it would because it was just a kid and kids bounce back kids get over it kids move on... You watched yourself strike the child over and over and repeat over and over the tears and the sorrow from the child you can't take it anymore you break out the door and make your way back into the hall. How long was I in there? I never did that... You go to the next door on the opposite side of the wall you don't like what you see, and you try to close it fast something doesn't let you close it and it sucks you. You are tied up watching your actions with another child of yours the mental abuse is debilitating the child ends up needing help and hates you for how you treated her, you said you did everything for her but the venom that came from your throat cut deeper than any knife, shot harder than any bullet fired from any gun. You didn't see her as a child that needed help you saw a child that has anger problems and you couldn't correct it. "Why is she so mad where did the anger come from?" you kept asking. Then you saw the fights the so-called discipline the abuse of power, yet you still think to yourself "I did the best I could these children should be grateful for what I did for them." You watch her whole life play out in front of you before you are released from the room. You stagger back to the waiting room and sit down again, you won't go near the vending machine, and you aren't ready to drink more water, you want another beer so bad it makes you sick. All you have known for the length of your children's lives was what the bottom of a can looked like and you wanted to find it out in every single one you picked up. The beer was more important than anything. You remembered the smell on the nurse and asked her for one. She didn't even look up. You waited for a moment and returned yet again to your seat to wait for another ungodly amount of time before your name and a room number were called. You made your way back to the corridor that you were in first making sure to stay in the middle of the hall so you would not get sucked into the rooms you peeked in before. You sit down on the cold metal table and wait for the doctor. One minute here was the equivalent of 10,000 years so sitting here for over thirty minutes would make you insane, you hoped that he would see you before then. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes goes by and you fix your hospital gown for the third time and take a deep breath. The doctor finally comes in and doesn't apologize for the wait that makes you upset. He sits down on his stool beside you and reads your clip board. "Seems like you've got a lot going on with you lately, how do you feel about it all?" "What do you mean? I've been stuck here for ages, the food turned to ash in my mouth the coffee water and your nurse is rude, and I can't understand what happened to me in those rooms!" The doctor nods "Ah, you're one of those patient's, aren't you?" You look at him confused; you did nothing wrong you barely complained even after waiting so long why was he talking to you like that. "I see this is your first time here. Well, I guess I will be the one to tell you; You are dead and this is..." "HELL? I'M IN HELL?" You scream cutting him off. He looks over the brim of his glasses waiting for you to finish. "No, you are in purgatory. You came here because you were not a good little human." You look at him confused again, "I did everything I was supposed to I raised my kids I kept a job and food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads they did not appreciate it or all the hard work I did for them!" The doctor looked back down at his notes. "You were a vile little creature which not only physically abused your children with 'disipline' but you added a good amount of mental abuse and fear and abandonment issues into them. You know one of your children that is a grown adult cannot see herself as one because you belittled her and berated her and spoke down at her, her whole life that she has a hard time understanding what her role is in society? That youngest child of yours is a mess too, drinking, partying, self-harm? She abused herself because of you. And don't get me started with that boy, he needed to be in jail or have a reality check LONG ago, but you let that one goes under the radar." "Because I wanted them strong and he was the only boy and he never left me!" "Why did the girls leave you?" The doctor took off his glasses and the lights flickered in the room. The room grew cold. "It's not my fault they left me!" "They escaped the abuse." "I didn't abuse them! I don't like being here I don't want to be dead I want to go to heaven and be with my family!" The doctor stood up and put his clip board on the shelf turned around and folded his arms and looked at you. "They prayed that you wouldn't make it. They wanted to be finally free of you; they hated the fact that they knew you'd survive like you always do "You'll never die." they said with broken voices they wanted it to be over." I was good to them, you thought to yourself. "No, you weren't". The doctor grabbed his stuff and walked out the door. "You will stay here until you figure that out. I cannot and will not help you this is your fault and ONLY your fault. You sit in silence for a moment gather your thoughts then get up and fix your hospital gown before you leave the room and go back to the waiting room, you walk over to the nurse's desk, but it is empty. You look around the room and look at the people still sitting in their spots and listen to the low hum of the vending machine, you go back to your seat.
You sit in a dim green waiting room where the lights flicker off and on every so often. You sit in the front row of several rows of wore out gray folding chairs in the middle of a room, one or two people are scattered behind you in the seats waiting like you.