untitled, g
“One… two… three…”
She pushes her way past the table in the middle of the room and the piles of books and folders stacked upon it. They teeter and totter, much like her, from one side to another. The danger of everything crashing spectacularly to the ground merits a hurried backwards glance, but the urgency spawned by that is nothing compared to the counting.
“Four… five… six…”
Little feet, sockless and shoeless, step lightly upon the wooden floor in an attempt to mask their footsteps. Twenty steps across the room to the chair, she counts, and there are at least five more. Her nose wrinkles in consternation as she tries to find a place while keeping her movements and noise to a minimum.
“Seven… eight… nine…”
There’s whispering around the room; the voices come from all four corners, all four walls. Sheets and papers rustle in front of her and there’s some giggling to her left. She frowns, irritated, and thin, shallow creases of unaccustomed worry form above her eyes. Something catches hold of her cotton t-shirt and she is yanked abruptly behind a curtain.
“Ten.”
The shushing begins and the giggles quiet quickly. She regains her balance in a hurry, standing straight as a stick and closing her eyes. It’s silent to the point that any movement - the twitch of a finger, a sniff, itching - is sure to sound thunderous, filling the room even more resolutely and wholly than the silence.
“Ready or not -”
She pulls herself in closer to the wall and takes a deep breath, willing herself to meld with the curtain, to blend in.
“Here I come!”
boo for being too wordy.