ARTHUR IN THE WAITING ROOM

Due to the great number of people in the waiting room it had become extremely dirty. Many people had brought their dogs with them to wait and allowed them to shit on the floor which struck Arthur as particularly ill-mannered. He wished, at least, that the people would make some effort to clean it up but none of them had brooms or mops or anything and you could hardly expect them to use their hands, You can hardly expect people to do anything, in fact, let alone get their hands dirty. Nevertheless Arthur felt disappointed; besides, the presence of the many young children - and even babies - in the room bothered him: he thought he remembered some unhealthy relationship between children and shit. It was difficult to be sure about such things in a place where nobody knew anything. The room was also growing darker very slowly and in the dark everything seems more or less the same, even children and shit. Children and shit as much as anything else, ruminated Arthur, his tongue delicately trapped between his teeth. He lasciviously bit the end, hard, and waited for the sensation, but it did not come.

After some moments the level of light in the room stabilised, leaving its occupants in an eye-straining twilight. Arthur looked up and noticed that the couple opposite him were still having sex, which had begun to bore him. It seemed also to bore them; the gritting of their teeth now resembled more a grimace of pain than of overbearing pleasure. He had read that only a thin line separates the two but he did not believe it, or at least believed that fact only incidental: just a result of having a body. Having a body brought about many incidental things. The line between pain and pleasure looke .