The Waiter

Bus stops served by more than one route; a train platform with multiple destinations; an airport lounge; these are the places I choose to wait. And I wait. Tube stations are too confined, too restricted by their singular purpose, suspicions are easily aroused, ambiguity is everything. Four to six hours can slip by, waiting, for the bus that never comes, for the plane that never lands, I don’t notice, because I’m not waiting for them; I’m waiting for me.

It is in the queues, the delays and the hold-ups that we can slip into the invisible. In these places people switch off and blank out. For to register the time spent languishing at the behest of Others is only to accept the absence of control, the failure to affect. Better to stay the onslaught of thought, to become the white noise, and fall into an empty dream, as these people do that stand in these waiting places. Watch, as they endlessly revisit their breakfast choices, or rearrange the letters in the street sign opposite, or notice that scuff mark on the suit jacket for the very first time. Watch as we watch them.

Sometimes I'll be joined by another, an old woman perhaps, frail and frightened, too alone to be alone. She'll come and sit next to me, she'll shuffle uneasily as bus after bus goes by and she realises we’re playing the same game. Sometimes I'll make it easy for her and get on a bus and sit there for thirty minutes until I'm somewhere I don't want to be. Sometimes I won't.

This is how I pass my day. Whilst others get up to work, I get up to wait. Occasionally people ask me for things: the time, cigarettes, money. I just look at them until they go away. To wait is a calling, a sacred calling, and I can't be disturbed. So let those around me get on with it, let them make hay. I shall sit implacable, waiting.