Waiting for Azrael

 

Waiting for Azrael

The air in the room doesn't move; it simply presses.

She has long since stopped looking at the clock, realising that time here isn't a sequence, but a weight. The waiting room has fractured, the mundane reality of plastic chairs and linoleum tiling splintering into a jagged, stained-glass fever dream. High-pitched frequencies of burning red and sickly yellow vibrate against the walls, echoing the frantic noise of a mind that has run out of distractions.

She pulls her legs inward and forms a tight knot, dressed in indigo and bruised purple. She tries to find a purpose in her world that refuses to stand still. Every sharp edge of colour feels like a spiritual siege, a sensory reminder that her momentum has been forcibly halted.

There is no use in pacing. There is no use in resisting the authoritative hand of the "in-between." To survive this stall, she must stop fighting the current and become part of the stagnant water. She buries her face, lets the jagged light wash over her, and does the only thing left to do.

She breathes. She waits. She waits for the shards to align once more.