Tile 19

Tile 19

While I sat and waited, I counted the tiles in the ceiling. Suspended on the day the system was conceived, judging by how dirty and sagging this one presented, I kept getting distracted from my counting by Tile 19. The layered effect of multiple rust-coloured water stains indicated that, at some time in its history, this space may have been an office. The kind with a typing pool and a too-handsy but-he’s-harmless-really, "Oh, that's just Bob. You get used to him and learn to ignore him," boss who smoked too much and swore too much and winked suggestively every time he called his secretary into his space to take dictation. 

Tile 19 seemed to stare back at me, emboldened by, even belligerent in the self importance of having borne witness to scenes and conversations over the years that likely wouldn't be believed. 

If these tiles could talk. 

One corner of Tile 19 was particularly fascinating. There, the darkest layer of staining, almost as dark as old blood, caused me to look to the floor directly beneath, expecting to find corresponding damage or evidence of what must surely have been dripping from the ceiling at one time. 

A chill ran down my spine as I considered what the building now housed in this modern Western word, a supposedly enlightened or "woke" society and then how much worse it may actually have been. 

Back Then. Before. When it was A Different Time and it was socially encouraged to treat others badly. 

The floor revealed nothing, however. Relatively new linoleum tiles covered the room. Hard- wearing, easy-to-clean, functional, reliable. 

Seeping outward, away from the darkest stain, the next layer, at least as dark as dried tobacco leaves, was shaped almost like a butterfly. The abject absurdity of something as beautiful and delicate and natural as a butterfly being present or even represented in this space caused me to actually chuckle to myself. The sound startled my fellow occupants in the otherwise silent room, just as the wall-mounted speakers announced, "four hundred seven!" 

I glanced at the Turn-O- Matic ticket stub clenched in my balled fist and sighed. 

604. 

I looked up and re-started my tile counting. When I got to Tile 19, someone started screaming. I sighed again, my fist tightening around the ticket.