The Waiting Room by T. M. Wright

in various colors being spilled behind the plaster.
    I felt Abner's grip strengthen on my shoulder. "Forgive me, Sam," he said.

TWELVE
    Â 
    Walls are made of plaster, furring strips, nails, paint. Only mice and squirrels live in walls.
    Walls can't bleed people the way a madras shirt bleeds colors.
    But the walls of that beach house did. I saw those colors puddle up in various places on the floor, I saw them come together, I saw arms jut out, feet, legs, faces—while the great room erupted in flames beyond, the walls bled their people and built them up again. There was a man of thirty dressed as if for a wedding reception who rose up from the floor like bamboo, and a fat woman of forty or forty-five who wept soundlessly, her shoulders heaving; near her, a young boy dressed in white, and standing alone where the hall opened onto the great room, a blond girl of ten or so, the same girl who had crossed in front of the car.
    "Forgive me," Abner said again. "I can't predict these things."
    I turned open-mouthed to him. I wanted to tell him, We've got to get out of here, the house is burning down around us , but I couldn't; it would have been like yelling, just before the truck rolls over, My God, there's a truck rolling over on us; what are we going to do?
    Because I was sure there was nothing we could do, sure that it was inevitable that the house was going to burn down with us in it. All of us. Abner and me. And the people who had been bled out of the walls. The house was going to burn down and destroy us all and there was nothing I could do about it.
    Then Abner asked, "Are you worried?" very casually, as if he were asking if I'd had my dinner. "Don't be worried," he went on, "or frightened. Enjoy it. We are being entertained , Sam. These are actors here, showmen, enjoy it, they want you to enjoy it if you don't, they won't like it, and they'll hurt us." Over the frenzied roar of the flames pushing out of the great room and down the hallway, Abner's voice was calm and confident, like the voice of someone who feels it is his right and his duty to be a spiritual guide to others. He put both hands hard on my shoulders now, as if to hold me there, in that house, while it burned. He grinned broadly, as if he'd told me a joke.
    "Let go of me, Abner," I said, my voice low and threatening.
    "They're enter taining us, Sam. You've got to enjoy it."
    Perhaps, I thought, he couldn't hear me above the rush of the flames. I yelled, "Goddammit, Abner, get your hands off me!"
    He let go.
    And I turned and ran past him to the door that led to the beach. I pushed on it; it wouldn't open. I pulled on it; it opened, and I ran from the house, toward the ocean. When the waves were licking at my feet, I stopped and looked back.
    The ocean side of the house had a fresh coat of white paint on it and what looked like new black shutters at all the windows. There were half a dozen windows on the first floor, three on the second, and two, longer and narrower than the others, in the attic, where the roof peaked severely. I thought for a moment that I'd run farther than I'd supposed, and that I was looking at some other house. Then Abner appeared in the kitchen doorway and stood silently in it, his hands in his pockets, his body framed by the flames rising behind him.
    I yelled, "Abner, get the hell out of there!" The flames danced brightly behind him. I yelled, "Don't do this, please don't do this!" The flames reached around from inside the house and embraced him. I fell to my knees. The ocean lapped at my feet. "Don't do this to me, Abner!" I pleaded. "You're my friend!"
    He yelled back, hands cupped around his mouth to be heard over the noise of the flames, "Of course, I'm your friend. And you're my friend. We're two friends. Together. For life!"
    "Sure we are," I called. "Friends for life, yes—Abner and Sam! Friends for life!"
    "Thank you, Sam," he called, and walked back into the house and closed the door.
    Within a minute, the flames visible