Question
You are advised to write between 350 and 500 words on the following topic:
‘Everywhere they are waiting. In silence. In boredom. Staring into space.’ Using the ideas in these lines of poetry as your starting point, develop your own description of the scene.
Model Essay
Everywhere they are waiting. In silence. In boredom. Staring into space.
The scene unfolds in a sterile waiting room, its white walls and fluorescent lights casting a harsh, unwelcoming glare. Rows of plastic chairs line the room, their occupants scattered like lifeless dolls, each person trapped in a bubble of tedium. The air is thick with an oppressive stillness, broken only by the occasional cough or the rustle of a magazine being idly flipped through.
At the far end of the room, an old clock ticks away the seconds with maddening regularity, each tick a reminder of time’s slow march. A television mounted in the corner broadcasts a muted news channel, the scrolling headlines ignored by everyone. The receptionist, hidden behind a glass partition, types away mechanically, her expression devoid of any emotion, as if she too has succumbed to the monotony.
In one corner, a young mother cradles her restless child, gently rocking back and forth in an attempt to soothe. Her eyes, rimmed with exhaustion, stare blankly ahead, lost in thoughts of tasks left undone and worries yet unspoken. The child’s whimpering adds a faint, melancholic melody to the room’s silence, a sound that blends into the background like white noise.
Nearby, an elderly man sits hunched over, his gnarled hands gripping a cane. His eyes are glazed, fixed on a point somewhere beyond the walls of the waiting room. His face, lined with the passage of years, reveals stories untold, experiences now clouded by the fog of waiting. He shifts occasionally, the creak of his chair punctuating the silence, a soft reminder of his presence.
Across from him, a teenager with earbuds in place bobs his head slightly to music only he can hear. His fingers tap out an absentminded rhythm on the armrest, a silent rebellion against the stifling stillness. Yet even his movements are dulled by the weight of waiting, his energy slowly sapped by the environment.
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A man in a business suit checks his watch for the umpteenth time, his impatience barely contained. His foot taps an incessant beat on the tiled floor, a metronome of frustration. His mind is elsewhere, perhaps in a boardroom or at a desk piled with paperwork, anywhere but here in this liminal space where time seems to stretch and blur.
By the window, a young woman gazes outside, her eyes following the raindrops as they trace erratic paths down the glass. Her expression is one of quiet resignation, her thoughts as gray and formless as the sky beyond. The world outside moves on, oblivious to the waiting, while inside, time stands still.
The room is a microcosm of paused lives, each person’s story temporarily suspended. They are united in their shared inactivity, yet profoundly isolated in their individual experiences of waiting. The silence is heavy, the boredom palpable, each breath a sigh, each glance a silent plea for time to move faster, for the waiting to end.
In this space, they are all connected by the invisible threads of anticipation and impatience, their lives momentarily on hold. The room holds its breath, a collective exhalation suspended in time, as they all stare into space, waiting for something to break the monotony, to bring movement to the stillness and color to the grayness of waiting.
Word Count: 546