And on that 16 February, a cold and rainy London afternoon, Jeremy was, of course, early.
“You’re fifteen minutes early,” said the receptionist, a petite ginger with a large mole on the right corner of her mouth. A white placard above her left bosom read “Doreen.” “Your appointment is at three o’clock.”
“Yes, I know,” said Jeremy. He had trouble looking the woman in the eye, her black mole twitched ever so softly when she spoke.
“Well, then, if you’re here, you might as well take a seat in the waiting room. It’s right over there, through that doorway,” Doreen the receptionist said, pointing to her right.
“All right, then,” Jeremy replied. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Hmph!” was the answer from the reception desk.
Jeremy made his way across the marble floor of the building, his prim black shoes clicking smartly as he walked to the waiting room, a small, carpeted space with one door, several gray plastic chairs, plain white walls, and no windows. There were five other people in the room—an elderly woman knitting a yellow scarf, a young Asian mother and her son reading a children’s book, a tall, black, middle-aged man in a blue business suit, and a teenage girl picking at her fingernails and mouthing the words to whatever song was playing through her headphones.
As he entered the room, the man in the blue business suit asked Jeremy to close the door. Jeremy did so and sat to the left of man.
“Awful weather we’ve been having,” said Jeremy with a smile. “’Course, it’s pretty normal for this time of year, eh? Least we don’t have any sleet today!”
The man turned and stared at Jeremy. He nodded.
“Hope my wife’s doing all right,” said Jeremy, nervously babbling. He was never good at conversation, but silence always bothered him. “She has a cold, you see. Just a cough, you know, but still. She had pneumonia last winter, and I’d hate to see her get sick again.”
The man stared at Jeremy, then picked up a magazine from the table on his other side, and began to read.
Jeremy, sensing that the conversation was going nowhere, gave up. He twiddled his thumbs, glanced up at the florescent lights, shifted his weight, and sighed loudly. He peeked at the mother and child, watching the boy’s face light up as he listened to his mother read a story about a beautiful princess, a talking horse, and a brave prince. Jeremy smiled, thinking of his own wife and their coming child. They had discovered not even a week before that it would be a boy, and Jeremy thought of himself reading to his future son someday.
A young woman in a tight black dress opened the door. Her brown hair was done up in a bun and she was holding a clipboard and wearing brown horn-rimmed glasses. “Mrs. Temple?” she asked. “Mrs. Jane Temple? It’s time now. Will you please come with me?”
The elderly woman glanced up, smiled at the woman, gathered her knitting, and rose.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long,” said the woman in black.
“Oh no, dear,” the old lady said in a thick Welsh accent. “It’s all fine, all fine indeed. Lovely, really.”
The door closed behind them.
Jeremy sighed. As much as he didn’t like making others wait for him, he hated waiting for others. But, he thought, that is the idea of being early. Always punctual, that was him. Why, to be late was to be rude, and Jeremy’s mother raised him to be better than that. Never late, always early, always polite and well-dressed and well-mannered—that was how his father was, and that, she always reminded him, was how he would be.
Jeremy looked up at the teenage girl a few seats over from the mother and son. She had taken her headphones off and was staring at him.
“Did you ever notice,” she remarked, quite dreamily, “that if you stare at someone long enough, they eventually look at you?” Her thick London accent lilted slightly, giving her an air of sophistication well beyond her years. “Like sometimes, when my mum is driving, I stare at the people driving the other cars. And even though they are supposed to be watching the road, they always look at me. Some of them look right away, but others I have to stare at for at least thirty seconds before they catch on.” She got up and moved to the seat left of Jeremy. “You see, I have this theory. The ones who look right away, those are the idiots, the gullible, self-conscious prats who constantly worry about how they are perceived. They always want attention, and thus catch on when anyone looks at them. But the others,” she paused for dramatic effect. “The others are the intelligent people, the ones who are aware of themselves and do not need the affirmation of strangers to be complete. Still though, I think that the very fact that people look proves that we are all psychically connected, although the idea of being connected to some people is pretty repulsive, if you ask me.”
Jeremy smiled at her. “Well,” he asked, “what about the people who begin the staring? What are they?”
“Hell,” she said, getting a glare from the mother across from her. “I never really thought about that.” She sighed. “I like you. My name’s Tif, one “f,” thank you very much.”
“I’m Jeremy,” Jeremy replied. He began to stretch out his hand, but thought better of it and just smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” murmured the girl. “So, you’re waiting then. Me too. All of us, really. Well, I guess that’s pretty obvious though,” she chuckled. “This is the waiting room.”
“What are you waiting for?” asked Jeremy.
“Same as you,” answered Tif. “My appointment. I’m a little late, though. Oh well, they’ll have to learn to cope.”
“When were you due?” Jeremy inquired out of boredom and curiosity.
“2:00” said Tif, grinning. “Like I said, they can cope. How about you?”
“Oh, my appointment isn’t until three,” Jeremy replied. “I’m early.”
“Early!” Tif exclaimed, surprised. “Why would you—”
The woman in black opened the door again. “George Writhe? Mr. Writhe? We are ready for you.” The woman tapped a pen impatiently on her clipboard.
The middle-aged man in the blue suit stood and followed her.
“You made your appointment quite last minute, Mr. Writhe! It is lucky we were able to squeeze you in,” said the woman.
The door closed behind them.
Jeremy sighed. It had to be almost 3:00. Were they running behind because of Tif? He snuck a look at his watch before Tif could start talking again.
“What!” He exclaimed. His watch had to be wrong, there was no way…
“Are you okay, Jeremy?” Tif asked, concerned.
“It’s nothing,” Jeremy assured her. “It’s just…I got here at 2:45. And my watch, my watch reads 2:47. But…it can’t be right. The battery must have gone, is all.”
“Do you always invent logical solutions to illogical problems?” provoked Tif. “Your watch is working, you can see the second hand moving. It’s only been a minute. Time is just moving slower here.”
“Yes, we’re bored, and time drags on,” Jeremy thought aloud.
Tif rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said.
The mother and child across from them were silent now. The story had finished, and the boy had closed his eyes and put his head on his mother’s lap. The mother stroked his hair gently. Jeremy watched for several minutes, thinking about his wife. It was a Friday, and they had plans to order Indian food and watch a movie. He liked Fridays, always the same routine, take-out and a movie, and they would fall asleep holding each other. Sometimes they would even make love, depending on their mood after the film. But it was always just the two of them, and Jeremy enjoyed that.
He broke his thought process and glanced at Tif, who was picking her fingernails once again. She caught his stare and frowned. “Can’t be long now,” she said.
The door opened once more. It was, of course, the woman in the black suit, come to announce another ready appointment. “Mrs. Sue Lang and Roger Lang. Are you ready?”
The Asian woman sighed deeply. She picked up her son, who was heavy-eyed and near sleep, and rose to follow the woman.
“I’m sorry that your appointment had to be so early,” said the woman in black. “It was the only time we could take you.”
The mother smiled, nodded her head, and followed the woman out of the door, which promptly closed.
Tif rose to her feet and clapped her hands together. “Well,” she remarked, “it’s only you and me now, Jeremy. I say we fuck this place and grab a pint. I know a great pub not far from here, the bartender’s name is Smithy, Irish bloke, doesn’t ask for my ID and gives me free beer because I dated his wanker son for a bit. What do you say?”
Jeremy smiled. “Well, I can’t miss my appointment.” He looked at his watch. It read 2:50. Jeremy was sure that it had been more than three minutes since he had last checked the time, but, well, nothing was making sense today, and he didn’t want to bother about it again. “Why don’t we make a rain date?”
Tif’s smile fell. “You’re a bloody idiot, you know that?”
Jeremy was taken aback. “Pardon?” he asked.
Tif sat down next to him and stared him in the eye. “Look, Jeremy, tell me. What is this appointment for?”
Jeremy thought. “Well, obviously…you know. You’re here too.”
Tif continued to stare at him.
Jeremy frowned. He tried to think, but he could not remember why he was there. All he knew was that he had made an appointment for 3:00 on Friday, 16 February. That was all that mattered. But he remembered thinking that he needed a dentist because of a possible cavity, so that must have been the reason for his appointment. “Dentist,” he said. “I think I have a cavity in my lower right molar.”
Tif sighed. “All right, then. We’re at the dentist. Sure. Do you remember making the appointment?”
Jeremy thought. He could not, for the life of him, remembering calling the dentist’s office. In fact, he had felt the cavity only yesterday, so he couldn’t have made the appointment for today. But he must have. There was no other explanation. “Look, what’s your point here anyway?” he asked.
Tif smiled. “Just thought I’d aggravate your brain a tad. Remember, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’”
“Arthur Conan Doyle,” whispered Jeremy, “Sherlock Holmes.”
“A friend from Baker Street.” Tif looked deep into Jeremy’s eyes, as though she were trying to see into his soul. “Just…remember that. Okay?”
“All right,” Jeremy said, thoroughly confused.
The two sat together in silence. At one point, Tif reached out her hand to Jeremy, who took it. She was pale white, and shaking softly. Jeremy squeezed her hand and smiled at her. She smiled back—weakly—and sighed, never letting go of Jeremy’s hand.
The minutes passed. Then, the woman in black came once again, clipboard in hand and pointed stilettos resting precariously on the polished marble floor. “Miss Tiffany Jones? You’ve kept us waiting for quite some time.”
Tif rose and made to follow the woman. “Yes, I have,” she said quite frankly. Then she turned to Jeremy. “You know, while you’re alone in here, you should read the newspaper. Really. And remember Holmes. And by the way,” she paused, “the ones who begin the staring? They’re the ones who have nothing to lose.” She winked and walked after the woman, who now looked irritated from having to wait even longer for a cocky teenager, and the door closed behind them.
Jeremy shook his head. The girl was so dramatic! He had never, in all his days…But still, how did she know about his not remembering making his appointment? That was strange. He sighed. Ah, well, that’s the future of our species, he thought to himself.
The newspaper was lying on a side table across the room. Jeremy rose and grabbed it. It was the day’s issue of the Times, though Jeremy hadn’t seen it yet. He flipped through the front few pages, noting such cheerful headlines as Sunny Days Ahead! and Queen Visits Glasgow and other more serious stories as Suicide in the Financial District. He was looking for the sports pages, having missed last night’s Arsenal vs. Manchester game, but they weren’t there. So he turned to the obituaries, the only section other than the news page in the paper.
There were no photographs, which was odd, but the paper must be trying to save ink to stay on budget, thought Jeremy. There was a story about a kind old lady who had passed away in her sleep. She left behind multiple children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and was greatly loved and would be missed, have a good time in heaven, Nana. Next was a man who worked for a local bank. Jeremy found himself wondering if this man was connected to the Suicide story in the news, but quickly pushed the thought from his mind. There was a tragic story about a family involved in a car accident. The father and daughter survived with severe but treatable injuries, but the mother and son passed away. And then a story about a young teenage girl who had been in a coma for several years and finally died quietly in the hospital. The girl’s name was Tiffany.
Jeremy put the paper down slowly. No, he thought, it’s a coincidence. But still, how odd? An old lady, a businessman, a mother and son, and a teenager girl named Tiffany. All of the descriptions fitted with the people in the waiting room, minus himself, of course. He looked at the names of the other deceased, but he could not remember the names of the people he had been sitting with in the waiting room. No, no. Tif. One f, she had been clear on that. This Tiffany had two fs in her name. And hadn’t the woman in black mentioned Tif’s last name? Johns? James? What was it! Jeremy shook his head.
Once you eliminate the impossible…
What was going on?
Whatever remains…
This was strange, very strange.
No matter how improbable…
Jones! That was her name! He looked at the paper again.
Must be the truth.
“Tiffany Jones,” he read aloud, “passed away Thursday after spending three years comatose. She was survived by her loving parents and several good friends. We will miss our beloved Tif.” He put the paper down.
What is this place?
The door opens. “Mr. Jeremy Ferris? We are ready for you.”
Jeremy stares at her, not moving.
“Jeremy? You were early, were you not? Thank you, it makes it easier for us that way. I’m sorry though, that you had to be alone.” The woman smiles. “Come, you’ve been waiting for us. Follow me now.”
Jeremy stares. At last, he rises and approaches the woman. He watch reads 3:00—right on time. The woman turns and walks out of the room. Jeremy follows her, slowly. The door closes behind them.
Back in the waiting room, the words on the newspaper shift. There are no eyes watching this phenomenon, just a few gray chairs and windowless walls. The movement in the newspaper ceases, and all is still. The new words glow black in the florescent lighting, the new ink sheen and neat:
“Jeremy Ferris passed away Friday afternoon after sustaining injuries from an accident en route the hospital, where his wife was receiving pre-natal care. He is survived by his wife and son-to-be, as well as his mother, Martha, his siblings, Brian and Sydney, and many friends. Rest in peace, Jeremy.”
