When the shelling stopped, the British soldier climbed out the left side. The German soldier climbed out the right side. They never met again. They were allies for four hours and strangers for the rest of their lives.

The Modern Shell Crater

The waiting room is a shell crater. The waiting room is on Harley Street. The waiting room has four chairs. The chairs are leather. The leather is green. Two men sit in the chairs. One man sits by the window. One man sits by the door.

The man by the window looks at his phone. He moves his thumb. The thumb swipes up. The thumb swipes down. He is not reading the phone. He is moving his thumb so he does not have to look at the other man.

The man by the door looks at a magazine. The magazine is about watches. The man does not care about watches. He turns a page. He turns another page. He is performing the act of reading.

The Coldness of Silence

I sat in a chair like this once. I had just stepped in something wet on the floor. I was wearing socks. The wetness soaked into the cotton. The wetness reached my skin. It was a cold feeling. It was an annoying feeling.

I wanted to tell someone about the wet sock. I looked at the man across from me. The man looked at the ceiling. I did not say anything. I kept my foot still. I felt the wetness. I felt the silence.

The Pediatric Perspective

Taylor W. is a pediatric phlebotomist. Taylor W. takes blood from children. Taylor W. says that children are different. A child will walk into a room and see another child. The child will say hello.

“A child does not have a performance. The child has a question. The child wants an ally. Adults do not want allies. Adults want discretion.”

– Taylor W., Phlebotomist

Discretion is a word people use on Harley Street. People say discretion is a sign of respect. People say discretion protects privacy. This is a lie. Discretion is a wall. We build the wall with our eyes. We build the wall with our phones.

We sit two meters apart and we pretend the other man does not exist. We do this because we are afraid. We are afraid of the reason we are in the room.

The reason is the hair. The man by the window has thin hair. The man by the door has thin hair. They both know this. They both looked in the mirror this morning. They both used a specific light.

They both touched the scalp. They both felt the loss. The loss is a shared experience. The loss is a common weight. But the men do not speak of the loss. They do not speak of the scalp.

The man by the window looks at the man by the door. He looks for a second. He sees the hairline. He sees the struggle. He feels a connection. He looks away. He looks at his phone. He breaks the connection. He chooses the silence. He chooses to be alone with the loss.

Institutional Solitude

In the 19th century, prisons used the “Silent System.” Pentonville Prison was a famous silent prison. The prisoners wore hoods. The hoods had holes for eyes. The prisoners could not see faces. The prisoners could not talk.

The guards wore felt slippers. The guards moved without sound. The goal was reform. The goal was to make the prisoner look inward. The authorities thought silence would cure the soul.

The silence did not cure the soul. The silence made the prisoners go mad. The prisoners needed to hear a human voice. They needed to know they were not the only ones in the building.

The waiting room is not a prison. But the men wear invisible hoods. The hoods are made of shame. The shame says that hair loss is a secret. The shame says that seeking help is a weakness. The shame says that you must endure the consultation alone.

The receptionist speaks. The receptionist has a soft voice. The receptionist calls a name. The man by the window stands up. He puts his phone in his pocket. He straightens his jacket.

He does not look at the man by the door. The man by the door does not look at him. The man by the window walks through a door. The door closes. The man by the door is now alone. The silence is different now. The silence is bigger.

I think about the wet sock. I think about the man who did not hear about the wet sock. We could have laughed. We could have talked about the floor. We could have talked about why we were there. We could have been allies. Instead, we were just two men in a room.

Beyond the Waiting Room

The industry of hair restoration is an industry of details. A surgeon looks at a scalp. The surgeon counts the grafts. The surgeon measures the density. This is the technical part.

This is the part that happens at a hair transplant clinic London where doctors lead the work. The doctor is an ally. The doctor looks at the scalp and says the truth.

The doctor says what is possible. The doctor takes the hood off. But before the doctor, there is the room. The room is where the solitude is enforced. We have engineered this solitude.

We have decided that the most anxious moments must be private. We have decided that we should not acknowledge the person who understands us best.

He has the same anxiety. He has the same hope. He has the same thin spot. If the man by the window spoke, the man by the door would answer. They would talk about the wind. They would talk about the cost of parking.

They would eventually talk about the hair. They would find that the hair is just hair. They would find that the shame is a mistake.

The man by the door turns another page. The magazine is old. The corners of the pages are soft. Many men have turned these pages. Many men have sat in this leather chair. The chair has a dent.

The dent was made by many bodies. Each body sat in the dent and looked at the floor. Each body felt alone. This is the paradox of the waiting room. It is a room full of people with the same problem.

The chair holds the man who will not say the word scalp.

The Tapping Code

I remember a story about a factory in the 1920s. The factory made clocks. The workers sat in rows. They were told not to speak. The manager thought silence made the workers faster.

The workers became sad. They began to tap on the tables. They tapped in code. One tap meant “I am tired.” Two taps meant “The sun is out.” They found a way to break the silence. They needed the connection more than they feared the manager.

The men in the waiting room do not tap. They do not have a code. They have high-resolution screens. The screens are better than hoods. The screens keep the eyes down. The screens keep the thoughts inside.

The man by the door is called next. He stands up. He leaves the magazine on the chair. The magazine is open to a picture of a silver watch. He walks to the door. He stops for a moment.

He looks at the empty chair where the first man sat. He looks at the leather. He looks at the window. He does not say anything. He walks through the door.

The room is now empty. The leather chairs are still there. The green leather is cold. The clock on the wall ticks. The tick is the only sound. The street outside has noise. There are cars. There are people shouting. There is life. In here, there is only the silence of discretion.

We think we are protecting ourselves. We think we are being polite. We are actually being cruel. We are denying ourselves the one thing that makes a hard thing easier. We are denying ourselves a witness.

When I left the room with the wet sock, I saw the man outside. He was waiting for a taxi. I was walking to the station. We stood at the curb. The light was red. I could have said it then. I could have said, “My sock is wet.”

He probably would have smiled. He might have told me about his day. We stood there for thirty seconds. The light turned green. He got in a taxi. I walked away.

The wetness was still there. The silence was still there. We are all sitting in leather chairs. We are all looking at magazines we do not like. We are all waiting for our names to be called.

We are all two meters away from the person who could help us carry the weight. We just have to look up. We just have to say a word. We just have to admit that we are in the same hole.

The man by the window is gone. The man by the door is gone. The room waits for the next two men. They will come. They will sit. They will scroll. They will perform. They will be alone together.

It is a long day on Harley Street. It is a long day everywhere. The sun moves across the floor. The shadows of the chairs get longer. The silence stays the same size. It is a heavy thing. It is a thing we choose to carry.

Put the Weight Down

We do not have to carry it. We could put it down. We could speak. We could be children again. We could ask the other child what they are doing. We could find an ally.

But for now, the room is quiet. The magazine stays open. The watch in the picture tells the time. The time is always now. The man is always waiting. The door is always closed. The scalp is always hidden. The wall is always there.

I went home and changed my socks. The new socks were dry. The new socks were warm. I felt better. But I still thought about the man. I wondered if he was still in the room. I wondered if he had found what he was looking for. I wondered if he was still silent.

The silence is a tax. We pay it every time we enter a room and pretend we are the only one there. It is a high price. It is a price we do not have to pay.

The next time I sit in a green leather chair, I will look at the man across from me. I will not look at my phone. I will not look at a magazine about watches. I will look at his eyes. I will say hello.

It will be a small sound. It will be a small start. It will be a hole in the wall. It is better to be a man with a wet sock who speaks than a man with a dry sock who is silent.

It is better to have an ally in a crater than a stranger on a street. We are all in the crater. The mud is deep. The air is thick. But we have cigarettes. We have names. We have words. We should use them.

The silence is not respect. The silence is a cage. We have the key. The key is a voice. The voice is yours. You can use it whenever you want. You can use it in the waiting room. You can use it now. The man in the next chair is waiting for you to speak. He is just as afraid as you are. He is just as alone as you are. Break the silence. Find your ally. Climb out of the hole together.