I haven’t even eaten today, its 1:00pm. He tells me to sit in the chair across the room, and I do it without question. I do everything he says without question. I can’t feel my legs, but they move over to the chair, I sit. I don’t want to look at the woman at the desk; I don’t want to see the ambiguity her face holds for why I could be doing this. My head feels heavy, my hands are clammy, and I can’t seem to make my legs stop shaking. I’ve never done this before; I’ve never been to this place, and I’m not familiar with the procedures of which are about to occur. My heart is beating faster and faster as I sit in the chair longer and longer. I look up.
A black woman sits across the room from me. There is also another girl, to my guess probably in her early twenties, waiting to be called, relaxed, reading a magazine to my right. The black woman is wearing sweatpants and a pullover sweatshirt. It’s May and hot out, but the temperature doesn’t seem to bother her. I feel it all over. I can feel the perspiration trickling down my neck. There is a hanging fan in the room, but it doesn’t help. The woman looks at me. You don’t have to do this, I think. The door is across the room; I could walk out, pretend I never came here, and sneak out like a snake, would he see me? I look over to where he is standing. His eyes pierce a hole through me. I look back down.
He doesn’t know what you’re thinking, he doesn’t know. He crosses the room, sits next to me, and touches the back of my neck with a tissue, balls it up in his fist. He doesn’t know.
“It’s going to be 15 minutes” he says. I don’t say anything; I continue looking down at the carpet below my feet. Its multiple colors: blue,