By Marie-Louise Meyers

The overcrowded waiting room as silent as a tomb. 

Blank stares incorporated into empty faces embraced by cell phones

but anxiety written as if waiting for the next shoe to fall.  

Haven’t we recovered from the Pandemic where buttoned up with masks reluctant to share our space?  Are we concerned about another Disruptor?

Are women the worst offenders, once so chatty breaking down social barriers, now buried in social media on their cell phones?

Did the Pandemic or the recent election make such serious inroads into our lives we can’t turn the page though it may mean the survival of our free nation without allowing creative juices even argumentative ones to stir?

How do we bridge the gaps that exist without making connections?

The silence suddenly broken by a whistle coming from the earnest throat of a boy wanting to feel both at ease in the strained surroundings, 

and a way to hug the room creating warmth with lips curved inward 

then expelling air as if to say I’m with you all the way declaring empathy

in the most dramatic way venturing out of a protected place

with a common talking point extending beyond boundary lines.

I spoke to him of “The Whistler” a long ago radio show,

a detective, who wanted to make the streets safe by his whistling presence 

which engendered fear in every hoodlum within ear shot.

The boy was excited now, eyes as big as saucers,

while the rest of the room never stirred, his mother’s eyes

hinting at a faint smile but locked into her cell phone all the while.

I asked him his age, “eight,” he said, “I’m two eights together!” 

While we continued to converse, I gave him a brief history of my era, without TV, cell phones, even landlines, how we passed our time, never failing to break the ice over the warmth of a pot-bellied stove, fire place or

an extra setting for the neighbor or meter reader who came to each home.  

No matter where we were making others feel comfortable and safe

breaking any tension existing, our voices resounding 

amongst the people surrounding us. 

How can we hope for empathy in our society, sustain it 

when we have forgotten the human factor,

the desperate need for our voices to be heard

whether ringing with an anthem so sweet it bears repeating

or resilient to the last with our bastion of belief. 

Only this little boy understood breaking the solitude

in a crowded waiting room was a means of connecting.  

Why didn’t the room erupt into laughter and happily ever after

with eager tongues awaiting response from others telling their stories?

Spontaneity the key, how many caught in a quagmire of their own making?

There was a lightness to capitalize on in this blight of silence.

Will this earnest little boy be rewarded or be considered an intrusion

to the usual fare of non-inclusion. 

Was he protected enough to think a world without end!

Will he build on the whistle with the years?  Hardly without a receptive audience to cheer him on or in even more creative ways to make an impression with only a faint smile emanating from his mother hidden by her cell phone with others thinking only an illusion intruding on their space. 

Cell phones are just faceless images,  but they have more appeal to some who cannot extend themselves to others or bear up under scrutiny thinking all their prayers superficial or serious will be answered by social media

bypassing the real world of touch and feel as if a support system.