The Unknown Patient

People were sitting in the waiting room. Each one’s eyes were hanged on the digital counter expecting his number to light at any moment. When number 65 appeared on the red led screen, an old stood up from his seat and went to the information desk in trembled steps. “Your medical card, please,” the nurse asked the old man who gave her the medical card without any gesture. The nurse started to check the old man’s medical file on her computer screen, then, she looked at him, gave him a white paper and said: “You are in the wrong place, sir. You should go downstairs; give them this paper.” The nurse did not wait the old man answer, she called number 66 while the old man was still waiting on the desk. “Sir, you have to go to the cardiology department, here is the ER.” The man did not utter any word. He looked at her angrily. “Any problem, sir,” the nurse asked him realizing that the old man became angry. The old man starts to speak a strange language. “Do you speak English, sir, French?” the nurse asked the angry old man. “No, no English; no French,” the old man answered with a faint voice. The man turned his head towards the people who were waiting in the room searching someone who can speak his language, who could play the role of a translator so he could tell the nurse why he came to the ER but not to the cardiology department. Suddenly, the old man felt down raging in his incomprehensible language. Everyone in the room looked at him, but nobody moved to rescue him. A man was sitting in the first raw told another man beside him: “He is cursing god, English and French languages, and the nurse. He says they are similar; they all kill people.” The old man’s body stopped trembling, and his voice became almost absent. He eyes were staring at the desk where two printed papers were attached. The written letters were images for the old man; they meant nothing to him: Nous sommes la pour vous aider. Tolerance zero.