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The Question Remains

The Question Remains

– Fiction by Wendy K. Mages –

Featured in issue 16 of Dreamers Magazine and Honorable Mention in the 2023 Dreamers Flash Fiction and Non-Fiction Contest!

Homemade Insanity

Confidently flouting the mandatory mask policy, the man, wearing khaki cargo shorts, an orange short-sleeved polo shirt, and loafers, entered the quiet waiting room. The receptionist must have noticed his bare face but, out of deference or conflict avoidance, merely asked him to take a seat in the waiting area and complete the intake form.

He looked at the others, all masked, all mute, all waiting. The somber office, its overbearing silence, was torturous, like proctored exams in school.

“My writing is way too big for these small boxes,” he announced. The receptionist looked up, nodded politely, but said nothing. The other patients paid little heed.

He repeated himself, perhaps to ensure his captive audience appreciated it was as impossible for him to confine the size of his large scrawl to the tiny fields of the form as it was for him to confine his widely splayed legs to the width of the chair. Or perhaps he needed a distraction, a balm for his rising anxiety about his appointment, only moments away.

Still no reaction. The other patients must have heard him, but didn’t look up from their phones or magazines. For a moment, he seemed to settle in to answer the questions on the form.

“So glad this form has only two genders,” he said, surveying his audience, hoping for something. Agreement? Applause? This, too, failed to generate a response.

“This form has only two genders,” he repeated, “male and female. Good, right?”

“Well, my dear,” said the wrinkled old woman, sitting alone in the corner, “It’s always nice when the choices work for you. Yet, it’s still a bit of a Goldilocks quandary, now, isn’t it?” The receptionist looked up from her computer. The old woman’s grandmotherly cadence, little more than a whisper, was strangely compelling. The other patients began stealing surreptitious glances; one, abandoning propriety, watched with uninhibited curiosity.

“Huh?” he said, his face flushing, uncomfortable with the attention he’d craved just moments before.

“It’s true Goldilocks had more choices,” she conceded. “Nonetheless, the question remains.”

“Mrs. Thompson,” the receptionist said to the old woman, “we can see you now.”

“The question remains,” continued the old woman, rising for her appointment. “Which gender is just right for you?”

Flustered, he struggled to regain his equilibrium, his status, sputtering little more than reiterations of what he’d just articulated. But Mrs. Thompson had already left. No one was listening.

About the Author – Wendy K. Mages

Wendy K. Mages, a Mercy University Professor, is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an award-winning poet and author. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her master’s in Theatre at Northwestern University. As a complement to her research on the effect of the arts on learning and development, she performs at storytelling events and festivals in the US and abroad. To learn more about her and her work, and to find links to her published stories and poetry, please visit mercy.edu/directory/wendy-mages.

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