Waiting

The most mundane of waits: A woman sits in the grimy, poorly-lit waiting lounge of the car repair shop, which consists of two cracked leather and chrome chairs next to a haphazard pile of hunting  magazines. She glances at the coffee pot whose contents have burned to the bottom of the carafe. Finding no interest in Field and Stream, she pulls out her smartphone and gazes at it, grimacing.

A peevish wait: The teen paces, checks her watch again, scowling. Fifteen minutes late. She plops on the couch, which protests with a squeak of springs. She pulls out her phone, checks her voice mail, her e-mail, her messages. Nothing. She plays Words with Friends for a few minutes, checking her voice mail, her e-mail, and her messages in breaks. Nothing. She checks her watch again and sighs, kicking her heels off. Half an hour late, no messages -- she'd been stood up.

Lovers wait: She looked out the window of the train as they passed the projects, tall and bleak with tiny windows, scorch blossoming from some, boards blocking the view of others. Past the projects, graffiti bloomed on the smoky walls of brick factories, the quick iconic scrawls interspersed with vibrant murals, all furtively sketched in the night. Then Chinatown, with its bold, ornate gate and glimpse into the ordered chaos of the outdoor market. The train stopped and moved backward, readying itself to start the maneuver to back into the station. At the station, the woman's lover waited, lean and energetic and foolish in love with her, edgy like the city itself. She smiled.

Waiting for the end: Her mother lay dying, hooked up to monitors, scratching her bruised hand repeatedly and murmuring that something bit her, that there were bugs all over her. Her father, exasperated, reassured her mother that there were no bugs. It was not the tiny cancer in her mother's brain that was killing her -- it was the pneumonia, and her body's inability to hold onto sodium. It was never the cancer that killed; cancer only disrupted.

Friday: The week had been rough. So close to the end of the semester, students groused about everything, gathering around her like a flock of geese pecking at her, demanding this and that. And she greeted them, calmly answering their questions instead of lashing out at veiled insults. It was not their fault, she reasoned; they were very stressed from proving themselves and falling short, and it wasn't unusual for students to have external locus of control toward their failures, blaming outside forces. Still, Friday couldn't come soon enough, and she would relax with a glass of wine in a totally silent living room.

Anticipation: The pristine layer of snow, the glow of her heart, whispered that something, something good, was coming. She didn't know if it was a little or big thing, if it would make her day or change her life. She wondered if an attack of bliss, of transcendental, edgy bliss, was about to descend on her as it had in the past. She hoped not -- she hoped that this time it would be good without the price to pay.

A child's wait: Tucked in bed, the little girl keeps one eye open, waiting for a change in the air, a trickle of magic that feels like tingles and kittens, that will tell her Santa has arrived. The eye closes, and she falls asleep next to her sister.