As I stared at the ceiling, red leather couched my body. Well, this time it was red leather. Sometimes it's not red; often it's not leather. Every time the texture is different, but the amenities are always the same. Two sofas, two armchairs, one loveseat. Each sofa flanked by end tables. On each table is a lamp, and a tray of food. Cookies to the left, sandwiches to the right. The trays are always full. The Waiting Room is different each time, just as it is the same. People come here to, as obvious as it sounds, wait. Just like the room and its furniture, each person has a reason, but every reason is different. My reason? Boredom. Things are interesting here. Or, at least more interesting than they are in real life. Like I said, every time it's different. Sometimes there's grilled ham and swiss sandwiches. Sometimes there's chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes there's a 45-year old balding man in a tu-tu. Like I said. Interesting. If you asked someone who knew what he's talking about, he'd tell you that The Waiting Room is just a shared-consciousness mode of REM sleep. Of course, he'd be talking out of his ass, but that's not a bad approximation. Nobody really knows what it is, but does happen when you're asleep, and there are other people involved. When The Waiting Room was discovered, it was hoped that it could be used as a vector for faster-than-light communication. Unfortunately, The Waiting Room was found to be completely non-deterministic. Two people can enter at the exact same time, and they will not necessarily meet. In fact, because of the sheer number of people using The Room (1.4 billion have admitted to using it at some point in their life -- a full 17 percent of the world population), it becomes almost impossible to even grasp the probability of meeting someone twice. Failed as a useful technology, The Room was pressed into service in a much more interesting, and some would say useful, role. Recreation. And so, people wait. The Waiting Room gives people an opportunity to take off from their lives. "To float free in the ether of carelessness," one Waiter put it. It's theraputic, for most people, to just sit and be around other people. Especially for those waiting for life-saving transplants, or worse, those waiting to die. There was one of the latter at the other end of the couch. She was a woman, around 95 I'd wager. She had long grey hair that flowed down her back and over the red leather. Wrinkles at the corners of her mouth told volumes about how much she had enjoyed her life, and a heaviness in her eyelids belied how much she was going to miss everything about it. She spoke endlessly about her sons, and their beautiful daughters. Her name was Helen. "... one time little Julie entered The Waiting Room on her own, looking for me. Of course, she didn't find me, but it's so endearing that she missed her grandma so much that she came here looking for me." She sighed. "I want to thank you again for listening. It's really nice to have someone who cares." I smiled. "It's no problem. The pleasure is entirely mine." "Still, I think I've talked your ear off quite enough. It's just about time for breakfast. Goodbye, and thanks again." "Goodbye." With that, she ascended the staircase at the back of the room. Of course, it wasn't really breakfast-time. Not for me, anyway, I'd just eaten lunch. I suppose I should explain the mechanics of The Room. People enter through a door at the end of a short hallway, and enter The Room at what I like to call the "front corner". To leave, you climb a set of stairs at the opposite corner from which you enter, what I call the "back corner". Time passes in The Waiting Room exactly as it does in the real world. If you enter at 1:00 P.M., spend three hours, and leave, you will come back to the real world at 4:00 P.M. Pretty simple, right? The problem is, everyone enters and leaves at a random time. Ask ten people in The Room what time it was when they entered, and you'll get ten different answers. Scientists say that there's a very small but non-zero chance of meeting someone from a hundred years in the future. Stories abound of people who have tried to exploit this probability for financial gain. If they'd have read a little closer, they'd have seen the (estimated) one hundred and forty-seven zeros before the first significant digit in that probability. Has there ever been someone I wish I could meet again? Of course. After a while, though, you sort of reconcile yourself to the fact due to the probabilities of space and time involved, you'll never see these people again. Nobody talks about it, it sort of ruins the atmosphere. I still remember one beautiful woman I met, though. Her name was Karen. She was already in the room when I entered, sitting on one end of a green corduroy couch. The other seats were taken, so I grabbed a tuna fish sandwich and sat down next to her. I remember she turned to me and said, "Hey, where are you from?" "Skokie, Illinois. You?" "Annapolis, Maryland. Do you Wait often?" "A lot, it's sort of a hobby of mine." "Oh, you're a people-watcher? A student of human behavior?" I smiled in spite of myself. "Heh. You might say that. I think it would be more accurate to say that I'm a student of relaxation." "Ah, so you're a college student." She smiled. I'll never forget that smile. It was bright and honest, you could tell that her smile came straight from the heart. I couldn't help but smile even wider because of it. Her smile was infectious. "So how about you?" I asked. "Do you do this often?" "This is my first time," she replied. "Really? Well, on behalf of a veteran, welcome." "Thank you." She smiled again. Did I mention how great her smile is? Over the next few hours we talked about a lot of things. Her mother died when she was twelve, and she was living with her father and two brothers up until she went to college. She went to MIT and studied electrical engineering, but says she'll probably transfer into religious studies because it's too challenging. Her father didn't like that idea, but she stood up for her decision and was doing it on her own. She wanted to try out for an improv comedy group, but couldn't work up the courage. She wanted to go skydiving some day. But most of all, she wanted to help people find answers to their problems. Unfortunately, like most people, she had no idea where to start. "Come here," I offered. "Spend an hour or two each day, here in the Room, talking to people. You're doing it right now, you're a natural." "Thanks, I think I will." She smiled again. "Oh, not tomorrow, though. I'm flying out to see my grandparents in Georgia. We always get together for the Fourth of July." "Oh, you're in July? It's February for me. Cold and depressing." "I'm sorry," she said. I was sure that she meant it, too. I wanted to see her again, but to do that, I'd have to first figure out whether her July was ahead of or behind my February. "So what year is it for you?" I asked. "1998." The look on my face must have worried her. "What?" she asked. At that point, for me, it was 2147. You see, the technology that enabled the discovery of The Waiting Room wasn't even invented until 2104. This was not a mistake; there was no way she was lying to me. Entering the Room unassisted was not unheard of, there have been rare documented cases. But from 150 years in the past? It was as though I had somehow played a cosmic dice game, and rolled a six for each atom in the universe. But the thing that weighed most on my mind was, as soon as I exited this dream world, she will have been dead for over 50 years. "Nothing," I managed. "You're definetly behind me." "Oh, really? Is there anything in the future I should know about?" She smiled. I fought hard against the lump rising in my throat. "No, not really." "Oh, crap! I should go," she said. "Take the stairs over there" I said, motioning towards the back corner. "That's the exit." "Maybe I'll see you again?" she smiled hopefully at me. "Maybe." I smiled back as best I could. "Bye!" she exclaimed as she climbed the stairs. "Bye..." Maybe some day I'll run into Karen again, but I doubt it. That's just the way things go in The Waiting Room.