The Passport Office

Buddy must you sit in top of me? I grab my purse off the chair next to me trying to vacate the seat before he deposits his derrière. It's not like you can't sit on the next one over which is just plain empty. He misjudges and sits down between the two seats. They squeak and slide - a tad.

"Oops - choose one," he says to no one in particular or is it to me? He readjusts his derrière and chooses the one, of course, right on top of me. Of two seats, one empty and one with a purse on it, why would he choose to sit on the one with the purse on it?

My neighbour stirs and clears his throat. I keep my head resolutely down. Buddy, don't talk to me. I may be in the passport office, and it might not look like much to you, but this is 'me' time. I glance across at the paperwork on his lap. He has the same first name as my father and two others beside. He was born in England before the Second World War and his last name is a chess piece. Hmm - he also made a journey across the water from the North Shore.

I wonder: did he come to Canada as a child evacuee during the war? Did he emigrate to a new life with his parents soon after the war - his dad a RAF pilot regaling the family on cold winter nights with war stories? Soon his wife joins him. From their accents I surmise they came to Canada as adults, in the sixties, as a young married couple. Chances are they started their Canadian life back east before the bitter winters drove them west and they traded their snow shovel for an umbrella.

"How long will we have to wait?" asks his wife.
"I don't know," he replies. "It's almost this lady's turn but there are still 20 numbers before it is ours."
I long to ignore him. But I respond.
"I've been here 40 minutes already - so you might wait as long as an hour."
There - he wins. He got me to talk.

Ten minutes later, the monitor pings and displays 'F354'.
"It's your turn," says my retired Anglo-Canadian fellow citizen.
"Yes, thank you," I reply, likely never to see him and his wife again.
Yet, one never knows, perhaps one day we will meet again - on the pages of a story.