Tuesdays are rarely busy days at the office of Dr. Henry Woods. There was that one patient at 8:00 am, the man with the ringing in his ears – it's because of these damn phones, I tell you, they're radioactive – and the woman at 9:30 am swearing she had chicken pox (it was poison ivy), but now it's 10:45 am and the waiting room is as quiet as ever. The only sound is the cool hum of the air conditioning unit fighting against the pressing July heat, and the clean white of the room is only broken by a row of blue chairs lined behind a thrifted coffee table. Allison Glade, the office's medical assistant, stretches in her swivel chair behind the front desk, spinning once to the left and then to the right.
Allison glances out the front door. There's a squirrel digging beneath a tree a couple yards away. It switches locations every few seconds, searching for a nut it will probably never find. Allison picks up a blue pen and sketches the squirrel on a piece of paper from the printer. She draws a little acorn in his paws and gives him a top hat. She adds a bowtie. She makes another squirrel next to him, a lady squirrel with a hairbow and a parasol. She adds daisies on either side of them, a tree between them, and a sun in the corner. She hears the door open and lifts her eyes. A young woman – Dr. Woods' 11 o'clock appointment – enters the waiting room and approaches the desk. Allison smiles and throws away the sketch before handing the woman the pen along with a form attached to a clipboard. She glances back at the squirrel. It's still digging.
YOU ARE READING
Snapshots
Short Story*COVER ART IS MY OWN ORIGINAL WORK* In this portfolio of short stories, I have 22 works, 63 pages, and 19,204 words. My stories are organized by emotional theme, beginning with one story about emotion in general, and then moving through stories expr...
