The Waiting Room

The surgery waiting room is nearly full, yet there hangs that familiar, stifled quietness that is so quintessentially British. The thirteen people that occupy these seats in their uniform rows fall into two different types- those that are frequent visitors to this waiting room; on first name basis with staff and wearing their ailments like a rosette of pride. The other half are those that still have that Victorian custom of keeping a 'stiff-upper-lip' and soldiering on despite knocking at death's door. Here they smother their bronchial coughs into embroidered handkerchiefs, stifling their splutters and sniffs; yet they fool no-one.
The room is speckled with the silvery grey heads of the older occupants, permed or neatly combed into that familiar style of the over sixties. The airless space is thick with the musty fragrance of stale cologne, mothballs and tobacco, remnants of odours caught in the fabrics of the people's clothes. Outfits are creased and crumpled, the colours faded through time. Some are ill- fitting and would not look out of place hanging on the rails of the Oxfam shop next door. They sit together in couples, men staring into space, lined hands resting on the worn wooden handles of their walking sticks. The women's handbags all rest primly in their laps. Some tightly clasp and fiddle with the straps as they absentmindedly pass the time until their turn with Doctor Bird. Eyes gaze unfocused at the tatty noticeboard where posters are pinned haphazardly, curling in at the edges.
A woman sits alone, set apart from the rest. Her clothes are crisp and bright; the colours are vivid and unworn. The woman's figure is lithe and slender for her age and her smooth, unlined skin suggests good care has been taken of herself. There are no outward signs of illness; she sits still and calm and straight-backed in the cheap plastic chair. The only movement comes from her fingers twisting and turning the gold ring on her left hand, round and round. A door opens with an almighty creak and there is a sudden rush of movement; heads turn in unison to greet the messenger. A name is called and the well-dressed woman stands slowly to her feet. Her eyes are steely with determination as she makes her way toward the open door to receive her dreaded news. She leaves behind her the rabble, sat comforted by their minor aches and pains.

Re-reading through my notebook, I found I kept returning to a piece of description that I had written whilst sat in the Doctor's surgery the other day, so it was this that I chose to work on for exercise 2. Whilst moving it from page to computer screen I found that I immediately became absorbed in the act of redrafting- changing its format; adding in extra details, deleting some parts and reordering the sequence of events. I also found that I remembered things from the scene that hadn't been
apparent at the time. As a first attempt at descriptive prose, I am pleased with the result. I'm surprised at how long the exercise took as the resulting passage is very short-I spent a lot of time trying things out whilst redrafting. I feel that it has been successful in re-creating the stuffy atmosphere, and setting the scene. Obviously this is a first attempt at writing prose, so some of the sentences seem slightly stilted, and possibly there are some grammatical errors, but with some extra work and practice I will hopefully make good progress. I really enjoyed writing about people and describing them in detail; I find people-watching endlessly fascinating. I love observation, it was one of the aspects I enjoyed the most about my Illustation degree, so this is an area I really want to explore further in my writing. This weekend my plan is to go out on my own with only my notebook for company and get some serious observation and description practice in; hopefully this will provide me with a whole load of interesting material to work from at a later date. Look out people of Telford- I'll be watching you..