The Fear of Chance

It reeked of isopropyl alcohol and the eerie stench of cleanliness. I was hidden behind the blurry sheen of tears over my eyes, trapped in a melancholy and unsettingly anticipatory dreamland. Fragile, yes, so fragile is our existence, I began to realize. Our own little universes, like delicate porcelain, shatter by the swift, cruel hand of a single second.

All this I wondered silently, butchering the inside of my cheek with my own teeth. Nervous habit. The warm, metallic savor of blood leaked through my mouth and drenched my tastebuds--civilians in the war between skin and tooth. I brought my quivering hands to my eyes and mopped away the tears that threatened to pour free. My sole comfort was the wordless comraderie between all the souls in that harshly-lit waiting room. The mutuality of misery. The dull, pulsing panic that ran cold through all of us--we shared it. In the silence, in the averted glances, in the sound of our shallow, fragmented breaths. And yet, intertwined in the togetherness was a sense of impending envy. Some of us would leave with the revitalizing relief of sharing at least a few more heartbeats. And others--others would fall from the cliff of slight hopefulness and into the pit of funeral bills, sympathy flowers, and woefully unspoken goodbyes. Perhaps it was not the fear of loss that whittled away at me, but the fear of not knowing. Fear of chance, of the invisible dice over which I had no control.

All in the waiting room looked up. For one of us, the news was here. Life or death. Heartbeats or funeral bills. It was for me. I stood up, unsticking my legs from the stuffed plastic seat, where smears of sweat lingered where my thighs had been. Powerlessness seized me, digging into me with claws of trepidation. The blindfold of uncertainty was about to ripped away. Life or death. Relief or goodbyes. I inhaled shakily, stepped forward, and waited for the final light of truth to blind me.

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