Ready Or Not

With a start Sherry straightened in her plastic chair and shook her sagging head. Had she nodded off? Sherry hoped she hadn't been snoring or worse, drooling. She snuck a peek around the room and rubbed at her eyes. Why were the lights so bright? Just barely moving her lips she counted the other people scattered about. Everyone still sat unflinching.

         Had someone turned up the heat? With a grunt she leaned forward to snatch a magazine and fanned herself with it. A silver-haired woman glared daggers and tut-tutted. What was her problem? Sherry shot her a dazzling smile.

          A muffled cough echoed. Papers rustled. A chair scraped across the floor. A steady tick, tick or it may have been a click, click punctuated the stuffy waiting room. Somewhere a door creaked. Footsteps rat-a-tatted from the nearby hallway.

         Sherry fought the urge to jiggle and tap her feet. For some strange reason she began to hum and when she realized this the sudden squawk in her dry throat strangled the tune. Of course her appointed judge fixed her with a steely reprimand. The exaggerated shrug communicated Sherry's nonchalance. With raised eyebrows she nodded at the clock behind the stern woman, but this did not evoke an answer. So much for the art of body language. Wasn't it a universal form of communication?

         Could it possibly still be today? Was that a stain on her shirt? When had she dripped something? Without thinking she licked a finger and rubbed at it.

         Wait, had someone finally called her name? Was the receptionist beckoning her to step up to the window at long last?

         With an audible sigh Sherry settled onto another chair.

         "Did you study for the test?"

         "My MRI?"

         With an infectious giggle the clerk replied, "I just had to ask."

{300 words)