Walk-In on Papineau

The clinic on Papineau takes fifty a day and then stops. If you're not in line by seven you're coming back tomorrow.

You're filling out the form in French. I'm four seats down with a Châtelaine from March of last year. Between us a man coughs in a way that has a shape to it, a whole progression, like he's done this before and knows how long it takes.

You ask to borrow my pen.

I watch you get to état civil and check célibataire, then stop, then scratch it out and write c'est compliqué in the margin.

"They should have that one."

"Facebook has it," you say.

Three hours. We do the CBC cuts, the poutine question, whether it's worse to wait here or at the ER. You have opinions about the ER. You've been to the ER.

Your chest hurts and you don't know if it's your chest. My head spins and it might be my ear. The man between us nods at whatever either of us says.

They call you first.

You stop at the door. "If we're both still sick next week—"

"We'll be here."

The magazine has a recipe for a cake I'm never going to make. I read the whole thing twice.