Most GP appointments last ten minutes. Sophie had hoped it would be a nip in, quick pills check and back in the office.

When she arrived, she thought she was in the midst of mothers waiting outside the school to pick their children. Not that she disliked children or mothers, but she just couldn’t stand mothers who lived their children to run up and down the place. She had not anticipated that the surgery would be so busy although it was not unusual for mothers to come with their children during the school holidays.

‘Glad,’ she said to herself, as she settled in one of the chairs in the far end of the thirty-six-metre by twenty-two-metre waiting room. If she had thought she was going to wait that long, she would have tucked a magazine or novel in her bag when she left the office.

The children did not seem to be interested in the numerous toys that lay everywhere. Instead, they tried to push away the teenagers from the computer games. The waiting room looked like an amusement park.

Sophie checked the information screen and noticed that there were three patients to be seen before her. She scanned through the tons of magazines on the central table, desperate to find a good read. The Women’s magazine was more than six months old. A Fashion magazine and Celebrity Gossips interested her but when she looked inside them, she couldn’t find anything interesting.

Just then, she heard, ‘Are you looking for something to read, dear?’ an old lady asked, as she passed the book she had been reading to her, ‘I am about to go in now.’

‘Yes, please,’ Sophie replied, without checking what the book was about.

‘Lovely book,’ the old lady said, ‘I think I’ll get one copy for myself.’

Sophie opened the novel, ‘Dr Braver,’ and ignored all the noise and cries of the children. As she read the book, she remembered her own operation that her surgeon had scheduled for the following week. Her heart sank.

‘Where’s his medical ethics?’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe this. Thank God, he is not my surgeon.’ She said to herself.

Just then, her name appeared on the call screen. Time for her pills check. She closed the book and looked at it again.

‘I like medical stories. think I’ll get my own copy too,’ she said, as she picked her bag and left the waiting room.

To read Joe Kenogbon’s Novels, CLICK here.