Today the place where I go Everyday decided I was going to take a little field trip. This happens now and then. It is nice to shake things up a bit.
Except for today Somebody wants me to go visit the manager of the child care department in our local Welfare offices.
I do not really want to go there. I have been there before.
Somebody does not care.
I walk into the mock plush offices of the Welfare Department, handsome in the green and white and wood colour scheme. Through the heavy, thick oak doors, you can see a wall of plastic. Five windows offering help.
There are two areas where you can wait with your number in hand. One filled with chairs on white tiled flooring. The other filled with chairs on thick green carpeting.
The carpet is pretty dirty.
I go up to one of the five plastic windows and let a older woman know I am here. Her smile is warm for me. She tells me to take a seat and I will be called shortly.
I smile back and turn away. I do not take a seat.
I watch the teenaged punks, in baggy boy clothes. Barely-there girl clothes. They are pissy and obnoxious with the where is the money you owe me attitudes. Young couples. Finding out living together is not easy. There is already a certain hardness in their eyes. And so much fucking pride.
There is men in dirty jeans and work boots, discovering it was not a good idea to take that year vacation they believed they once deserved, now that their Unemployment Benefits have run out. They are restless, moving hands, legs, feet. Walking. Then sitting. Walking.
There is single mothers, disgraced with eyes cast downwards. Short clipped sentences are issued to their children. The younger ones run from seat to seat, laughing, care-free. The older ones sit quietly in the green seats, their eyes full of their mothers' shame and a defiance they call their own.
There are the smartly dressed. Like it is just another day at the office. Some of them have their mortgage papers in hand, drawn into tight white fists. They stare at the children with the juice-stained faces running, glad they did not have to bring their own.
There are the people from other countries. They sit with there little number in hand, staring intently at the big red numbers blinking on the wall. They do not know the English word for the number they hold. Some are thinking a full belly Everyday is not worth knowing nothing about where they are now. Some just burn, wanting something, anything from home.
And there are the lifers. Hair full of split-ends; white, dirty cracked sneakers. But even some of them still have it.
It is alive in the room. Not as alive as the contempt, but it is there. Fight.
I wish I was The Hand of God so I could pick just a few, offer them what they need to feel whole again.
But I cannot.
So I stand there and I smile at Everyone, until my name is called. Some smiles meaning more than others.
Except for today Somebody wants me to go visit the manager of the child care department in our local Welfare offices.
I do not really want to go there. I have been there before.
Somebody does not care.
I walk into the mock plush offices of the Welfare Department, handsome in the green and white and wood colour scheme. Through the heavy, thick oak doors, you can see a wall of plastic. Five windows offering help.
There are two areas where you can wait with your number in hand. One filled with chairs on white tiled flooring. The other filled with chairs on thick green carpeting.
The carpet is pretty dirty.
I go up to one of the five plastic windows and let a older woman know I am here. Her smile is warm for me. She tells me to take a seat and I will be called shortly.
I smile back and turn away. I do not take a seat.
I watch the teenaged punks, in baggy boy clothes. Barely-there girl clothes. They are pissy and obnoxious with the where is the money you owe me attitudes. Young couples. Finding out living together is not easy. There is already a certain hardness in their eyes. And so much fucking pride.
There is men in dirty jeans and work boots, discovering it was not a good idea to take that year vacation they believed they once deserved, now that their Unemployment Benefits have run out. They are restless, moving hands, legs, feet. Walking. Then sitting. Walking.
There is single mothers, disgraced with eyes cast downwards. Short clipped sentences are issued to their children. The younger ones run from seat to seat, laughing, care-free. The older ones sit quietly in the green seats, their eyes full of their mothers' shame and a defiance they call their own.
There are the smartly dressed. Like it is just another day at the office. Some of them have their mortgage papers in hand, drawn into tight white fists. They stare at the children with the juice-stained faces running, glad they did not have to bring their own.
There are the people from other countries. They sit with there little number in hand, staring intently at the big red numbers blinking on the wall. They do not know the English word for the number they hold. Some are thinking a full belly Everyday is not worth knowing nothing about where they are now. Some just burn, wanting something, anything from home.
And there are the lifers. Hair full of split-ends; white, dirty cracked sneakers. But even some of them still have it.
It is alive in the room. Not as alive as the contempt, but it is there. Fight.
I wish I was The Hand of God so I could pick just a few, offer them what they need to feel whole again.
But I cannot.
So I stand there and I smile at Everyone, until my name is called. Some smiles meaning more than others.
Comments
Most people I know would use it to smite the people waiting and the people behind the windows.
"Nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give" --Anonymous