Waiting Room

There are half a dozen people sitting around me, all of them at least three times my age. We’re placed in little black chairs and asked to fill out forms. Nobody looks at each other.
Everything here is fading. The carpet has mostly gone from bright red to maroon. The white walls have turned yellow and the light hitting them make the air in here seem off colour. The magazines on the small wooden table are all at least 5 years old. Each cover is made up of creases intermittently broken up by remnants of pictures. Most of them concern fallen celebrities, some are yacht catalogues, there's one gardening quarterly. Ceiling high stacks of files take up any free space next to the wall. They spread out to another room in the back, rows upon rows of them. There are two shelves for names beginning with 'x'. Just how many people have made the trip to this little 5th floor office? Are most of them even still alive? How many got cut and went home? Who were told 'go, you are a healthy person, you don't belong here'? What will they tell me?