THE MINISTRY OF WAITING

More about THE MINISTRY OF WAITING

A Small Tragedy in Which Nothing Happens, and Everything Is Required

In a certain city, whose name had been changed so frequently that its inhabitants had forgotten what it was originally called, there existed a bus stop where people had been waiting for a considerable time.

Nobody knew precisely how long.

The authorities maintained that the buses were running according to schedule. The passengers maintained that no buses had arrived. Both statements were officially correct.

Above their heads, an electronic sign announced:

BUS 24 — 2 MINUTES

This announcement had remained unchanged for seventeen years.

The people waiting had gradually developed a curious custom. Each carried a painting.

At first, this had been an act of protest. An artist, having waited three days for Bus 174, had brought a landscape to remind himself that somewhere beyond the municipal transport system there existed rivers, forests, and mountains.

The police questioned him.

Why was he carrying a river?

He explained that it was only a painting.

The police replied that this was precisely what made it suspicious.

Soon everyone began carrying paintings. A woman carried a pink cat. A worker carried three horsemen crossing the Russian steppe. An elderly gentleman held a landscape containing a church whose congregation had long since emigrated. A young woman wore Botticelli’s Venus upon her skirt, apparently believing that beauty might protect her from administrative procedures.

The Ministry of Transport eventually established a Department of Portable Culture.

Its regulations were straightforward: every citizen waiting for public transportation must carry a representation of something that did not presently exist at the bus stop.

This was called Cultural Mobility.

The paintings became more elaborate. The buses became less frequent.

One morning a minor official arrived and announced that the waiting itself constituted a form of transportation.

“Consider,” he said, “that seventeen years ago you were considerably younger. Today you are older. Therefore, although you have remained in the same place, you have unquestionably travelled.”

The passengers considered this argument.

It was difficult to refute.

A young punk carrying a portrait of a revolutionary asked whether growing old at a bus stop was therefore a revolutionary activity.

“Only with the appropriate permit,” replied the official.

An old man laughed.

Nobody joined him.

Laughter had not been prohibited, but it had become administratively inconvenient.

Meanwhile, the puddles reflected the city upside down, and in these reflections the buses arrived regularly, the passengers boarded cheerfully, and the government apologized for having wasted everybody’s time.

Occasionally someone suggested stepping into the puddle.

But the water was shallow, and nobody wished to discover that freedom required getting one’s feet wet.

Then one afternoon the electronic sign changed.

BUS 24 — 1 MINUTE

A terrible silence descended.

The passengers looked at one another. Their entire civilization had been constructed around the expectation that nothing would happen.

What if the bus actually arrived?

What would become of their paintings, their grievances, their friendships, their carefully cultivated despair?

Who would they be without the waiting?

At that moment a little girl, who had never known a world containing buses, placed her painting on the pavement.

It depicted an empty road.

“Where are you going?” asked the official.

“Home,” she replied.

“But you haven’t taken the bus.”

“No,” said the girl. “I have decided to walk.”

And with this completely unauthorized act, she introduced a dangerous new possibility into the Republic.

The other passengers watched her disappear down the street.

The electronic sign returned to normal.

BUS 24 — 2 MINUTES

Order was restored.

Nevertheless, for the first time in seventeen years, several passengers began to wonder whether the road had been there all along.