100.
There is a pager signal going of. Beep. Beep. The scuffle of plastic soled against a plastic floor and muffled talking. Through an open door the air carries hysterical laughter. Someone, a swish of blue scrubs and a white coat, walks by while she sits with her head bent down, blindly staring at her hands. 72, 73, 74, 75, she counts and she tells herself that by the time she has reached one hundred she'll be here. She'll be here. But when the woman she's waiting fore isn't there at one hundred she pulls out her phone and taps it twice, no missed calls, no new texts, so she starts over counting. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. She goes slowly so that she can properly taste each number, associating them all to tastes sha has tasted and eaten. 5 is Granny Smiths. 11 is Mac'N'Cheese. 41 tastes like fresh, pink salmon and 42 is everything while 43 is suspiciously alike to pineapple pie. When she reaches one hundred she'll be here, she figures. Only to one hundred. She can do that. She'll be here then. When one hundred is here and she has yet to appear, she checks her mobile phone with two taps but there are no missed calls, no unread texts, so she counts again, starting at one. When she reaches one hundred, she thinks, she'll be here. She'll have had time to get here when she's counted to one hundred. So she counts slowly, very slowly, associating each number to a colour she has seen before. 6 is a bright, apple-y green. 37 is an icky brown and 42 is everything and 97 is that gorgeous blue that the ocean looks like when the sky is bright and happy. 98 is burgundy, 99 i saffron, black is... 100. One hundred and two taps on a mobile phone without missed calls or unread texts. So instead she counts to one hundred from one because when she reaches one hundred she'll be here. She must be. Closing her eye,s she must be.So she counts carefully, associating each number to a person she has met before. 12 is grandma. 24 is the man on the bus andd 42 is everyone and she does this without associating either number to the one who's yet to come or the one who's already there. The one she's there because of. Scuffling sneakers wearing people in scrubs. At one hundred she'll be there. At one hundred. She must.And 98 is the president and 99 an obscure rude relative and at 100 she'll be here, at 100 she'll be here, she has to be, she must, 100, 100, soon she'll be here, 100, 1 left, only one, 100 is her neighbour with the huge barking dog. One hundred. She looks up. There is no one there.
Momentarily she is stunned by defeat. 100, her mind whispers, 100, and in her head she randomly thinks of the yet to have been counted Doctor, Dr Elcarim, and as she thinks of Elcaring in blue scrums and scuffling shes a door opens and there she is. Dark, dark hair in a scruffy ponytail, tight jeans, tiny t-shirt and enormous sweater. There she is and she sprints down the hallway and takes the sitting woman in her arms and she buries her head in the crook of the black-haired woman's neck. It is safe and it is comforting and despite all that is around them it is home. Almost can she forget what has happened, what might, the counting to keep her mind sane. The counting.
The counting.
She grins; whispers:
”One hundred and one.”
tjugofemte januari tvåtusenelva
En dator dog så det tog lite exta tid.
