Five Minute Read: Baser Thoughts

I feel bad. Well, I know I should feel bad, so I screw what I figure passes for a sympathetic expression on my face.

            Tears sparkle in the woman’s eyes—what was her name again? Annie? Angela?

            “…it was really quite an abusive relationship,” she says, her voice prattling on in a pitch that compliments her agitation: high and tinny.

            I tap my stockinged-clad foot on the carpet.

            One. Two. Three.

            “Of course, he’s trying to screw me over in court. And I don’t have much physical proof…”

            I glance down at the papers clutched in my lap before flicking my gaze to the coocoo-clock overhead.

            Forty minutes.

            What’s-her-name has been talking for forty straight minutes. Eating up the very limited two-hour slot for our writing group’s bi-monthly critique session.

            If she doesn’t stop soon, we’ll run out of time long before everyone gets a chance to read their pieces. Even worse? She’s not sharing a story with us. She’s not reading from a printed sheet of paper. No, she’s just…talking at us, rather explosively shouting her rage on our very unsuspecting and ill-equipped group.

            My foot taps harder on the floor. I let my gaze linger on the clock tellingly this time. The lady doesn’t so much as glance my way though. 

            She’s crying now, wiping at her nose and hiccupping about her rotten-no-good-piece-of-shit-soon-to-be-ex-husband.

            And I suppose I do feel bad for her. Then again, I only met the woman forty-seven minutes ago, so it’s rather hard to tell.

            I’d tell her, once more, how sorry I am that she’s going through a hard time, but I’m afraid that the next time I open my mouth it’ll be to politely but firmly inform her that her time slot has long since run out. That, indeed, we’re not a therapy group for the bitter and estranged.

            That we’re a writing group. A fiction writing group.

            Which would be rude.

            The Lutheran in me would feel guilty.

            The Minnesotan in me would feel conspicuous. Then again, I never was much good at being passive-aggressive.

            But seriously. I want to hear the next installation of Susan’s nature poems. I want to see Meghan’s progress on her YA drama. I want to share my piece on Christina and Jason’s on again-off again love story.

            I really want this lady to shut up.

            Which, okay…that was rude of me. Clearly, she’s upset and hurting. And I do have a heart but—hell, we’re a group of veritable strangers. Find your friends and complain to them.

            (Then again, maybe she’s already done that and now she’s decided to pick up her show and take it on down the road, so to speak, find new ears to sob to. More than likely, she’s run through her own host of loved ones, if her spotlight-hotting-ways are to be believed…)

            Yup. I’m definitely growing impatient.

            And I’m not being the most Christian-like version of myself.

            But I’m also not speaking these thoughts out loud, so I suppose it could be worse.

            If she’s going to hold us hostage, then I’m going to continue to think my baser thoughts.

            I glance back up at the clock. Fifty-seven minutes.

            I’m in Hell.