“Do you have kids?”
“No. Do you?”
“I use to … I lost a child.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine that.”
“Yeah.”
“How old was he or she?”
“She. And she was 23.”
“Crap. When was this?”
“Two years ago. Overseas.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. At least she died for a noble cause.”
“You think?”
The woman spins her head around and Jane flinches.
Jane then stands up, grabs her bag, excuses herself and quietly exits the waiting room.
Heather stood, facing forward. As the man on her left’s warm arm pushed against hers, she pivoted her back ever-so-slightly and spoke to Matt on her right. She yelled trivial words into his ear to provide purpose to her turn; she didn’t want to offend. As she spoke, skinny streams of smoke bounced in front of her, slid up her face, crawled over her lips and clawed into her nostrils. She twisted her head and scanned the faces behind her. She let her eyes fall to their hands, looking for the glowing red. She turned back to Matt, who glared at her, then nodded forward.
She could feel the crowd’s roar rise from her feet, past her hips to her shoulders. Shadows ran from all directions into the centre of the stage. One gave a wave, another ducked to swing a strap over its head before striking the right hand down loudly and forcefully. The lights popped, igniting the crowd.
And so Heather faced forward, as thousands of others did, forgetting all about the man on her left.
