The Waiting Room

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 36295

Fred knew then that he couldn't go on, and, having no alternative, entered the waiting room. He availed himself of an empty chair (the room containing no other persons, this did not prove to be beyond his capabilities) and sat down, preparing to wait

After some minutes, he satisifed himself that everything was in order and did indeed began to wait.

Waiting, it transpired was not as easy as it might appear to the uninitiated. One of the main problems, Fred realised while observing the array of torn and faded public information posters which adorned the opposite wall like a shroud, all of them extoling the virtues of, one imagined, various courses of action or abjuration which might benefit a body in just the sort of situation in which he now found himself, none of them, however, sadly, remaining legible, was that in order to wait most efficiently one must first know more or less for what it was that one was waiting.

Fred's own current difficulties in this regard were exacerbated by the larger and more existential problem of his inability to ascertain whether he was in fact waiting for anything at all. This realisation slowly filled Fred with a sense of dread and foreboding. For if he was not waiting for anything, could he in any real sense be considered to be waiting at all? Fred shuddered.

"I must be waiting" he thought aloud "for otherwise I am simply passing time, and that is something I cannot bear to do."

However the elapsing of a further period of time made it clear that it was not about to become apparent, at least in the short term, as to in which of these two activities Fred was engaged. However this in itself afforded Fred some slight relief, as he realised that he could spend some time, if not happily, then at least marginally less miserably, in the act of waiting to discover whether he was waiting or passing time.

Time passed, as is its wont.

  1. Fred continues to wait
  2. Fred stops waiting
  3. Fred passes time
  4. Fred passes wind

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Eric Kantona

9/17/2004 5:54:44 AM

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