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I walked into a large waiting room, dear God, and I saw the
room filled with people I did not recognize. One person was
whistling merrily an old tune I vaguely remember having
once sung myself. He was filled with such joy I could hardly
imagine why he was in this room. Everyone else seemed so
different. The entire assembly seemed plagued with such a
pall of gloominess that it seemed quite out of keeping with
this man’s happy demeanor. One man was eating a sandwich
with his back to another for fear that the other person near
him might ask for a bite. “If he thinks he’s getting any of my
sandwich he’s got another think a comin’,” I heard him
mutter to himself. Two people were arguing over sitting
rights to the softest chair in the room. Another person was
cowered in the comer afraid that others might see the tears
she was cleverly trying to hide with the magazine she had
thrust in her face. One man was counting the money in his
wallet for the tenth time and another man was looking at the
knees of a woman whose skirt had been too short while she
was standing and far too revealing when she sat down. “Who
are these people?” I asked the attendant at the receptionist’s
desk. “Why, they are all you,” the attendant replied. “You
have walked into the room of your inner self. These are the
people you parade before all of us every day of your life. We
see you very clearly. You seldom do. When the real you is
asked to stand someday, I am afraid you will have to have a
good-sized room to accommodate who you are.” I left the
room, dear God, and took all the pieces of me away with me.