Hell's Waiting Room

Something felt profoundly off about this place as I approached it on foot upon the gravel pathway. Every footfall had a build-up of consternation behind it which added up to my whole body weight.

From speakers mounted above the front door came a garbled, fuzzy voice reciting numbers. Random numbers escaped frantically from the speaker grille and fizzled away like breath into the dark, starless night. A cold chill ran up my spine, like a chord being yanked, when the glass front door slid open and let out a zephyr of stale air. After a great deal of struggling, my lungs were able to breathe in this solid air and I exhaled it back out like spit. I took one step into the place and the glass doors closed behind me, closing off the sound of the numbers hurled aimlessly into the night.

No amount of company could’ve mollified the Fear I felt, as I was in company indeed when we staggered up to that door in a drunken wobble. My girlfriend was on my right and my best friend was to the left of me.

Ambling over to the reception desk, which was the dread fortress of an awful menace manifested in the frostbiting features of a middle-aged woman, I composed myself before the prospect of exchanging words with the receptionist came to pass. Her vacant eyes continued to drill into the computer screen behind the counter as if the most monumental scene was playing out amid that pixelated playground.

“Hello…” I gambled.

“Do you all have membership cards?” she said without looking up from whatever it was on her computer screen, in a tone of such colossal indifference which carried in it the diminishing enthusiasm of the million previous times she’d repeated the phrase to a million different people.

“Membership card? No this is my first time. Ever.” I blurted out just to clarify this with the universe and myself.

Her eyes swivelled up mechanically and her blank pupils lightened just a shade towards the avuncular. She handed me three pieces of paper which we were supposed to furnish with our details. The usual charade. What could they possibly do with your details huh? Using crappy black ball-point pens we all scratched our names and contact details upon that rectangle of paper, everything required for the shadiest of parties to get a hold of us and harass us to the end of the Earth.

My girlfriend took all three pieces of paper and handed them to the blithe mass behind the reception desk. Loud and furious CLACKITY CLACK on that old model keyboard was followed by a mid-pitched humming cut short by the sound of a plastic card falling out of a printer into a little box. Repeat that sound routine two more times and our membership cards were ready.

“Just scan these in the machine behind you and then go in. You can start playing when the next game begins.” she directed us with an icy edge to her voice as if she was brandishing a razor-sharp stalactite close to our faces.

“Thank you for your service,” said my girlfriend while tipping an imaginary hat on that fiery red hair of hers.

We each took turns scanning our membership cards. When I scanned mine and let my best friend hobble over to present hers, I noticed something which I had missed upon my uneasy arrival. In the corner of the room next to a dusty black piano sat three bronze chimps on a bench made of the same metal. One chimp held its hands over its eyes, one over its ears, and the last over its mouth. A heavily portentous threat hung over these chimps who refused to see, hear, and speak no evil.

I gulped and said, “I don’t believe for a second we’re going to leave this place alive…”

My two companions had a stronger hold on themselves as they saw no threat in these oracular chimps.

“Get a grip.” said my girlfriend

“Yeah, get a grip.” echoed my best friend.

My best friend walked over to the thick-set wooden doors, each with a round bronze-bordered window like the ones you’d find on the side of a ship, and pushed them open. There was nothing gradual about the shift from the reception room into the main hall. The closest thing to the transition between the two rooms would be a bird soaring freely across the sky when, unbeknownst to it, the ground immediately comes up to meet it with no forewarning…

We entered into a gigantic hall with a very low ceiling which stretched as far back as the building could manage to take it. This imposed a very odd effect on the room, giving off the dizzying impression that the hall continued to elongate backwards, like a fulminant attack of vertigo – except while looking forward rather than down. Right in the middle of the hall was a sort of pit which you took three steps down into. Made worse by the white plaster walls which had turned a musty yellow by age, the place was illuminated by a stagnant pool of dim-white, fluorescent light, falling languidly out of the thin white tube lights fitted across the ceiling. Meanwhile, on the borders of the room, those blind spots where the decaying white light could find no landing, the room was being attacked by lurid flashing lights of all hues and brightness. That juxtaposition of crazy colours waving out from the far walls against the entropic lights in the middle felt like the marriage of a seizure and paralysis.

The air in the hall tasted totally rotten, as if the place hadn’t felt the touch of fresh air in centuries. Despite that, however, there was no smell to be detected. A feat in itself, even the most barren of places have a smell which clings to the air. This place had no smell.

All around the hall and in the central pit were fold-out cushioned seats, maybe about a hundred and fifty of them, but not all of them were occupied. There were no more than twenty people spread out quite sparsely around the hall. Extremely bent-up shapes hunched over the tables and focusing on something. The chairs in the hall all faced the same way, their positioning ensured that the eyes of the people sitting in them were locked right onto the stage up front. The stage was down there in the pit, on a raised dais which made it level with the rest of the hall. To the right of the stage was a podium, behind which stood a morose-looking gentleman in purple clothing, reading numbers into the microphone in a voice of utter hopelessness which echoed around the walls of the hall from the speakers mounted on them. The numbers he was reading out appeared briefly on small screens which were mounted on every single wall as well as the gigantic screen behind the number man. The numbers flashed for a brief interval before they disappeared to be replaced by the next number read out by the poor soul up on stage. This was the same voice I heard outside at the entrance, acting as a sort of warning to the people who approached the front doors.

We had just walked into hell’s waiting room, and here they do only one thing before the floor opens up to swallow them whole: play bingo.

This was my final night in Cardiff, a city where I lived for four years, where I spent some of my most formative years, went to university, got tangled up in drugs, fell in love, and became myself. My girlfriend and I thought we’d do something neither of us have done, before we move out of here and chain ourselves to the grinding wheel that is London. So, with our best friend in tow, we made it our plan to go play bingo. We had been drinking at a steady rate all day, so by the time we reached the front doors of the bingo hall we were positively smashed.

Our arrival was badly timed, the state we were in and the fact that there was a game already in progress when we shoved ourselves through those heavy double doors, we attracted all the wrong kinds of attention. Staff members shot us remonstrating glances while some eyes from the seats lifted up to clock down the three new presences in their midst. The reaction from the personage felt like we had burst into a church in the middle of mass and sneezed.

Once the ripples of disturbance we had started with our arrivals had died away and the unsettling hush recaptured the place, we walked towards the desk where we’d sign into the games. It was on our way there that my eyes fell upon another detail of the place. The carpet, it was bright red with an abstract collection of random shapes and squiggly lines. The sheer visual intensity of the carpet was so immense that it fought back the pervasive stagnation of the white lights above. Those shapes and lines in the carpet cast a shadow upwards through the glowing red. Stepping all over it gave the weird impression that I was walking on glass. Did I want to bend down and feel it with my own hands? No. I didn’t trust anything in this place.

We went up to a desk with a transparent plastic wall which reached up to the ceiling. There was a little gap in the wall through which our voices could reach the lady behind, and grab things she gave us. This lady looked less saturnine than the one we encountered on the other side of those thick doors which separate the living from the almost dead. We each paid £10 which got us six games. She got our money and handed us something which I wasn’t expecting at all.

“If you’ve never played bingo before, these iPads will be quite useful. The numbers will be called out quite quickly, so these will cross them out for you automatically.” she kindly suggested to us. “You can still use a paper and marker if you want but you’ll find it very difficult to keep up.”

Neither of us was very confident in our bingo abilities, so we took her advice and accepted the iPads.

There was only one suitable place to sit, and that was in The Pit. We headed down the short stairs and into that wide trough in the floor where we found us some seats just at spitting distance from the stage. The cushioned seats had the same pattern as the carpet, but when we sat down, we instantly found that it would’ve been much more comfortable to sit on the floor. During the time it took us to buy our games and walk over to our seats, the previous game had ended, leaving the stage empty for the interval the staff set up the next game somewhere in the back. I was staring up at the gigantic screen towering over me like a monolith when a member of staff in the same purple clothing as our erstwhile friend on the stage came over.

“Can I get your guys some drinks?” he asked in a polite tone which reflected in all its stretched-out syllables his enjoyment for the job. Expectant eyes upon us, we quickly made up our minds.

“Cider.”

“Cider.” We all repeated after one another like a looping record.

The kindly morose gentleman nodded and hopped on towards the bar.

We used this interval as an opportunity to get our bearings and assess. My companions began setting up their iPads while my eyeballs were darting all around the place to have a good look at everything – and also to pinpoint any emergency exits in case we needed one…

This was the first time I felt the stifling light fall upon my face like a cloud of dust which lands on everything right after a house is blown to bits. I felt it get caught between the pores of my skin. I felt like I had to wash my face.

My eyes were then captured by the visually overwhelming orgy of lights on the boundaries of the room. These fantastic slot machines had screens that curved up and around, engulfing the point of view of the people who were sitting in front of them feeding it coin after coin. Colourful lights were being spat out of these machines like a rainbow in the throes of violent vomiting. Strips of LED lights bordering the screens, background lighting on the machines themselves and the buttons flashing golden light intermittently all combined to create an effect on the eyes similar to that of wringing a wet towel. Across the screen danced all sorts of weird animated cartoons; a fairy casting a spell at the player, a leprechaun running across a hill with armfuls of gold bars, the devil brandishing his black rusted pitch-fork while laughing wildly… Christ, did I really see that? Or did I imagine it?

I started people-watching. Who are these humans, I thought? What are they doing here at 7:30 on a Friday evening? They look like caricatures of the human body bent completely out of shape by age. Their skin all sagging and pasty, their unkempt and greasy hair falling wantonly over their faces. Bodily proportions completely out of whack, they move around the place with sluggish and exaggerated movements. The longer I held these people under my scrutiny, the more disjointed their image became, so I promptly stopped.

The purple-clad staff member returned with three bottles of cider on a tray. He set down one by one in front of us, followed by the bill. I got my card out ready to pay for it when something about the bill knocked me for six. A bottle of cider which went for somewhere around £4-5 at a regular bar was only £1.10 here. This is the sort of thing that would get me branded as a fool and probably slapped across the face if I told it to someone outside of here. With a wave of pleasant surprise, I paid for the drinks and shortly after that, our first game began.

A different member of staff, still garbed in purple, sidled onto the stage and took her place behind the podium. Once she got all the welcomes and obligatory pleasantries out of the way, the rapid stream of numbers broke forth. All I had to do was keep my eyes on the screen of my iPad and watch as the numbers automatically got crossed off. An assortment of cards were spread out over the screen with random numbers dotted around it, numbers which would be crossed off whenever they were called. The card with the most numbers crossed off – the closest to winning – would move to the very top. The first and smaller prize of £10-£20 is for a horizontal line of numbers covered and the second jackpot prize of £100-200 is for an entire card or full house.

A grave hush settled over the entire hall while the numbers were called out. No one uttered a single sound. Their eyes are drilling into their cards, waiting for their digits to complete a line so they can call out their win. But not so fast… The tension builds in the room and the air crystallises as people are three numbers away… two numbers away… one number away… Any second now goddamnit, just call the right one, please! And suddenly like a thrown brick shattering through a window, the voice of someone calling “line!” from the far end of the room. The collective pent-up anticipation of about twenty people simultaneously released in the form of a wave of disappointing groans.

“What the agonising fuck! So damn close…” I meanwhile gasp out, scanning the room for the damn voice who stole it right from under my nose. A purple member of staff moves towards the source of the voice to verify the claim. A thumbs up signalling a valid claim sets the game back into motion.

This time it’s for a full house, with an even bigger prize. Only difference is the tension which is ultimately shattered at the end when someone snatches the prize is astronomically higher, with a tsunami of disappointment issuing from the rest of the players, as well as louder and more foul abuse quacking out of my mouth.

Once the main game is finished, a small break follows for people to buy another drink and smoke out their stress.

Another thing which takes place is a National Game, being played amongst thousands of people all around the country; online and in person, and you have the option of buying into that game if you wave a £10 note around for the members of staff to collect and sign you in. In these the prize is much higher, climbing up to £10,000 depending on the amount of people playing, which also means that the path which will lead your chances to victory is equally as steep. Not many people in the hall take part in the game, but a couple of tenners waving about signal the confidence of the hands playing. The winner is in some far-off corner of the country, hundreds of miles from here, so no one really bothers tuning into the rising tide of numbers, unless they have put money down.

Another main game commences and a collection of numbered cards show up on the screen of our iPads. Digits are spat out through the microphone and are struck out of the cards in front of me. My bones begin to quiver as I’m just a number away from winning a line, a mere £10 but it’s the brilliance of winning that I’m after. The same rising tension turns the air into a superconductor waiting to be electrified, instead what happens is an insular voice splinters the tension like the clangour of a steel beam falling onto a pavement from many meters above. The orator of the voice is an old bat a few seats over from me.

“Oh well, she’s only £10 richer, doesn’t matter.” I think as I accept my hair width loss. Learn to love losing. There’s no winning when there’s nothing for you here.

Wait a minute here… This isn’t the bingo that I’ve seen all over the place, a game with an exuberant man in a white suit standing up front, with an expression suggesting a smile that’s lasted for decades, spinning a cage full of numbered balls until it deposits the one to be read enthusiastically out loud. “Two fat ladies, 88” Where are the bingo cards with thick marker pens? Those sprightly elderly people? The cocktails with paper umbrellas?

I’m sure that romantic vision of bingo is still being played somewhere in the world. The air is still shaking with the rattle of the ball cage someplace. But not here. This is Mass Production Bingo. The goal is to move through as many games in as short a time as possible. Maximise efficiency so more games are played with more money funnelled into the company. Hence the brisk pace of the numbers and the iPads supplied. What sort of developments took place in the time since I last thought of that archaic version of bingo? The waters in the current of progress are often clear, often very murky.

We played yet another game and a break took place when I got up and headed towards the bar. It was this tiny space, a regression in the wall maybe six feet wide, where the bar was set up. There’s a tap of Red Stripe and Strongbow, and the fridge at capacity with bottles of beer and cider. On the shelf in the back are bottles of rum, vodka and gin, but what really takes my attention is a short and wide-looking bottle of Courvoisier, of all things.

“How much for a double of Courvoisier?” I ask the bartender, also in purple, also sullen.

“Three pounds.”

I can’t help but wince at how criminally cheap the drinks are in this place. She silently pours me a double shot of earthen, silky brandy on a cube of ice. It’s when I’m tinkling the ice in the glass on the way back to our seat that I realise why the drinks are so cheap. Keep the alcohol flowing, keep it cheap, get them hooked on some easy drink and they’ll blow their money up. Not that the sort of people who frequent this place often would binge drink while playing bingo. Their choice of drinks is coffee and cranberry juice.

There’s no Time in this place. Barely any fresh light or air, and all this number calling is playing cheap tricks on my mind.

Another game ends and a National Game carrying a £7200 starts during the break. This time I decide to watch the few who are playing in the hall. My glance falls on a few elderly ladies sitting by themselves around the room, hunched over their cards with markers in hand. Yes, their cards, not iPads. They’re playing with the grace of a seasoned professional whose markers have seen countless bingo cards over the decades. A look of such solid determination materialises over their faces as they gaze down at the numbers with tunnel vision through their necklace spectacles. Not at all deterred by the random hive of digits arranged on their cards, their arthritic fingers are moving at a speed far beyond their range of movement as they keep up with the numbers called, finding them among the complex matrix on their cards and then crossing them out.

I feel a certain sense of admiration forming for these figures when all of a sudden, a squeaky voice from a few rows over to my left screams out, “HOUSE!” Heads twist in that direction where a skeletal old lady in white wearing glasses is waving her iPad, gesticulating with pure victory. Two purples rush in her direction to ensure a valid claim and the gasping of a dozen lungs blow out of the assembled people when they hold a thumbs up to the man in front.

“We have a winner here!” Calls forth the man at the podium and everyone breaks out in a short applause. Even I decided to join in because there’s something worth celebrating about a lady whose whole year changed in a mere moment.

“Take the money and run!” I yelled at her over the applause. She was promptly at the check-in desk, collecting her winnings and running for the sun.

It was about time, I thought, that we left as well while the getting was good. Someone just won big, the scales of the universe need rebalancing and that means that someone will be royally fucked over soon. Our merry band of vagrants had disrespected every rule this establishment lived by; we were loud, disorderly, drunk and twisted, jeering at the winners and distracting the losers from their moment of peace. Downing whatever was left of our drinks, we all got up and casually walked towards the entrance. As we passed those immovable blast doors, the air began to lighten and freshen the closer we came to the entrance, like emerging from the inner recesses of a mausoleum into the open.

I shot one last glance at the monkeys who see, speak or hear no evil out the corner of my eye and felt a preternatural sense of worry take over me. My feet sped up as I briskly marched out of the place and out into the open air. Numbers were still oozing out of the speakers above the doors and the cycle kept continuing.

It was when we hit the gravel path leading to the bus stop that something about the general ambience of the place behind us started to pinch our backs. The temperature of the air rose to a level which broke a sweat out of me and a faint red glow began escaping through the cracks underneath and between the doors. As sudden as an explosion, the numbers called from the speaker contorted into the most indescribably menacing scream of agony and fear. Those screams reached a pitch so loud and fearful that I could hear them simultaneously from the inside of the place itself. From what I could guess it was the floor in the pit opening up to swallow those waiting to go down into the depths of hell.

My companions looked back in abject bewilderment at the detestable sounds flying out of the place. I took one look at their expressions and casually reassured them,