Altogether Now

Having occasion to go to the lab where they take blood samples, I noted today that here we had a perfect United Nations. It was a busy lab and being in a culturally eclectic neighbourhood, there were Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Haldeman Dutch, Americans, Orientals, et al. We took our numbers and sat. No one read the tattered Health Care Pamphlets or the three year old Vogue. We sat together and waited and watched.  The longest wait would be thirty minutes and the shortest, the same. A Babel of languages were muttered into the air along with the periodical loud electronic female who announced, Number Sixty One May Now Come To Desk One. At the desks for customers, sat an attendant East Indian woman who was likely the office senior. She was courteous and thoughtful. She did the office routines but she also took blood just as all the other clerks who came and went. These women were fully rounded medical technicians who seemed happy on the job and interested in what they were doing. When children came in, it was comedy relief. They used the chairs are a gym, they hopped and crawled and went here and there into the hallway and back. They played and we smiled. Children's games are universal. Bonka bonka, bonka said one yellow tee-clad little Indian boy as he bounced up and down on a cushion in a chair. His mother stopped him but he went on to find another game venue. Various languages could be heard and costumes from shorts to saris, on the fat, the thin, the old, the young and on all the colours of skin you could imagine. We sat in the large room on black leather arm chairs waiting our turns to give blood. We had order, we had a place, we served our time period without complaint. It was a fair system. No one came before anyone else. It didn't matter if you were older or more ill, you waited and you knew it. There was little conversation other than the necessary kind: that's where you get your ticket, I'll move to the next seat so you can sit with your child, excuse me, thank you and so on. We sat in meditative silence comfortable being in the company of all. We watched with veiled interest as each person got up and went to his appointed station when his or her number was called. The desks were open so everything anyone said was heard. We knew where the individual lived, the phone number and the date of the birth and sometimes more. Our thoughts ran to: hmmm he doesn't look that old, she must have a very bad complaint to come in every week, that is brave child knowing what is coming. It felt good being among my fellow human beings - all with blood like mine for the most part, all with some reason for being there, all waiting, all orderly because we had a turn. Our ticket number said so. This was a rare place that had one goal for all and no one was better or worse than another. Here there was perfect peace.