I am waiting for my name to be called. I am not anxious though. I wait patiently and calmly because I know everything will be alright. I am the only white person here.
The waiting-room is large and barely furnished, its walls creamy white. Clean, sterile surfaces only occasionally interrupted by inspirational posters of smiling, employed people. I glance around and see there are posters of every ethnicity. “You can retrain!” says a smiling Indian man while on the opposite wall a Muslim women in a headscarf exclaims “I can work too!” I wonder if I am the only one that finds the posters vaguely offensive.
It is deathly silent in the waiting room. No-one wants to draw attention to themselves. We are all waiting. After a while the silence is broken by a short, middle-aged man of unknown ethnicity (although quietly I profile him to be Pakistani or Indian; I imagine him at home, stirring a large pot of curry, something authentic; I see his wife has one of those dots on her head; they laugh as their children perform for them; they pray to an elephant with four arms; the man straps on a bomb) who enters the waiting room from the “Staff Only” door and begins to read a list of names aloud. I don’t understand or recognise any of them. I wonder if he’s speaking English at all. I think perhaps I have come to the wrong room. I don’t dare interrupt him though. (more…)
