The Corridor

    Once it was pointed out to you, you couldn't miss it.  It being a gray chair, straight-backed and naughahyde covered, and it stood against the wall outside a doorway at the end of the hall.  After you registered for your treatment, you stayed in the waiting area of the facility until one by one you were to take your place in the gray chair.   When the door to the treatment room opened, releasing a patient, the inhabitant of the chair would enter the room, and another would proceed to the gray chair.   I waited for that chair to empty for a total of 36 days, consecutive except for weekends, and early in the morning, 8:00 a.m., because I was working then almost every day, about  an hour's drive from my home. 
   I never once sat in that gray chair.  Not that I was trying to prove a point or because I resented being told what to do:   I just didn't want to.  Nobody minded, as long as you were in the right place at the designated time, which I faithfully adhered to.  Instead of sitting, I would stand in the hall, usually not more than 15 minutes, and look at the artwork displayed on the walls, the usual depressing works painted by a dying patient, or by the children of staff members, paintings or drawings which struck me as both beautiful and repulsive.   The last time I was there was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a makeup day rescheduled due to equipment failure.