The Waiting Room — Michael White

"Hush. Hush now. Be still, for the library is ahead and the night grows dark. Listen to me well! This commotion you make would drive away the most gregarious of spirits, make no doubt of that! Come. Hold this candle and I shall strike a match. There. Yes, yes. I know that it is but a pauper's candle. You think that I cannot see how the flame is weak and guttering, the light it brings to this chill corridor pale and pallid? Yet it will suffice. Come. We must draw closer. My, how the library door creaks and moans from lack of oil when it opens. Please try not cry out when it slams shut behind us. You will disturb our visitor if you do! It sets my mind wandering as it always does when I stand here in the library, for it is the quietest of places, both dusty and cold, lit only by the sickly light from this torpid wick. Observe how the tired and reluctant wax slowly pools in the candle holder in which I hold it. Yet if a library is indeed the quietest of places, what then if all the words in these books could speak? Then surely it would be the most tumultuous of rooms, would it not? Every word, every vowel screaming out aloud for attention in a maelstrom of speech and words. Just think of it! If every book was a tale of a life, or perhaps many lives. What a seething mass of humanity would whirl and rage about us here! The lies, the sin. The joy, the happiness. The unrequited love and the solitary fool. All would rage and vie for our attention I am sure. And yet. My imagination runs away from me, for there is naught but silence here. As quiet as the grave this place. Yet over on the far side of the room another man sits, candle on table, silently reading. He does not know that we are here of course. How could he? So shall we approach, you and I? Come. Look at his clothes. Fine cloth and fancy cologne I fear. Let us lean over and peer at what occupies his attention so. We shall be the spirits at his shoulder you and I. Come close. Come close and see what it is that he reads…. " "The Waiting Room" is a collection of ghost and horror stories, tales of mystery and suspense, all linked in a common theme. The Earl of Ranleigh invites you to his club, membership of which is dependent upon relating at one of his resplendent dinners a tale of the supernatural. But beware! All is NOT what it seems...