“Durwin stood behind the two women already in line, one a middle aged woman just asking for directions to another part of the building. Next in line was a disarrayed young woman, perhaps around twenty years old, of an ethnic race from another country. She was completely disheveled in dress and personal decorum. Her clothes looked dirty and her hair uncombed. She neither spoke nor understood English very well. This description is not intended to categorize or discriminate against the people of any race. I am simply describing this young woman objectively.
“The conversation could not be heard by Durwin in detail, but the white woman operating the information booth, took considerable time to get forms for the girl, go over them with her and explain the whole process to her with great patience, repeating herself often to compensate for the customer’s lack of understanding, due to the language difficulty and perhaps the intelligence factor as well.
“Durwin thought it was very nice of the woman in the booth to be so pleasant and empathetic to a young person obviously in need of care. He didn’t mind waiting the ten or fifteen minutes it took for such a deed of kindness. There are some human beings in this department, he mused to himself, hope she is half as pleasant to me.
“When the time came, Durwin stepped up to the booth. Before he had time to speak, the woman snapped at him hostilely, ‘What do you want,’ she said with an emphasis on the ‘you’ that indicated contempt. Here again is a case of Durwin, a fine person, being turned on by a belittler on the basis of his appearance. He would learn in time that it is uncommon in some circles of Terraprima for a person like him to make the grade at all in life. In fact, it is so uncommon in these circles, that the hostility by belittlers is brazenly open and public.
“Durwin calmly told her he just needed a form, number such and such.
“‘We don’t hand out that form here,’ she snapped again. ‘You can get it when you go for an interview.’
“‘But’, protested Durwin, ‘I need to have the form ready when I go for the interview.’
“‘You can get no such form here,’ she came back angrily, then looked past Durwin to call the next person in the line that had now formed behind him.
“Durwin, the only white person in the line, stepped aside. He knew he would get no satisfaction here. As he walked around the corner away from the booth, he paused and looked back. The woman, with smiles and friendliness was now greeting the next man in line, again a disheveled person of ethnic race from another continent. Standing tall and proud and beaming, this government worker really thought she was doing her job in a wonderful manner, when in reality all she was doing was subverting her country to less than mediocrity.
“Durwin went home, wrote a letter to the Forms Division of the department asking for the form to be mailed to him. He received it by return mail. When it was sight unseen there was no problem.
“The Lawtons reported at the appointed time of two in the afternoon with their new forms and medicals ready. When they arrived, they were relieved to see it was a smaller office they had to report to this time; no long line-ups or tickets necessary. There were only a few people seated and waiting in this office. Interviews were taking place at desks spaced out and separated by room dividers. But although there was no line up in this room, for the Lawtons there would still be delay. Long after the others were all processed, they still sat there waiting. Finally someone came and told them to come and sit at one of the interviewing desks. She led them over, seated them and left.
“They sat there for another half hour before another woman arrived on the scene and sat behind the desk. She was an older woman, near retirement age they discerned, tall and of average weight for her height, looking unfriendly and hard-boiled and puffing continuously on a long cigarette.
“‘What brings you people here today?’ she growled sternly, as a swirl of smoke enveloped the Lawtons.
“‘We received a letter to be here with our new applications and medicals,’ replied Durwin firmly.
“She blinked, and grunted contemptuously, ‘Ugh’, as she reached for the envelopes, then separated Durwin’s packet from Canda’s. Upon opening Durwin’s packet, she quite obviously looked for one part only, the medical history form. To her obvious surprise it was there. She took a quick look at it, then at Durwin accusingly, ‘A question on this paper asks if you have ever had a mental illness and you answer no.’
“‘Right,’ said Durwin, pulling a paper out of his pocket, ‘and I have here a copy of my psychiatric appraisal stating that I never had a mental illness, but problems in life caused my breakdowns.’
“‘A copy is not acceptable to this office,’ she growled with yet a little more hostility, ‘we require an original.’
“Durwin spoke with yet more firmness, ‘You already have the original here in this office. I sent it to you in a letter when you previously requested it.’
“She blinked again, but then came back forcefully. ‘You cannot be admitted to this country,’ her cold growling voice asserted.
“‘Why not?’ asked Durwin strongly now tired of pussy-footing.
“She declined to answer.
“‘Why not?’ repeated Durwin strongly.
“‘Because it is illegal,’ she quivered as she tried to keep up her hard-boiled appearance.
“‘Why is it illegal?” demanded Durwin.
“‘Because it is. It’s against the law,’ she snapped as she turned her attention to the papers to divert her focus from Durwin at whom she could no longer look, for shame. She did not look at the papers for long, being in no emotional condition to do so. Then trying to compose herself again she said as firmly as she could muster, ‘You’ll be hearing from us soon. That’s all for today.’ She took the papers and left the room. The interview had been very short-about three minutes. There was no one else in sight. The Lawtons had no choice but to leave empty handed.”
Leo Aidan interrupted the story, “Durwin almost broke through to her that time when she quivered, didn’t he Collin?”
“Almost, Leo, at least that’s one plausible analysis, or perhaps he just shook her hollow pride. Then again it may be that he did get through to her. But if she had given in, then how would she face her colleagues in the back office?”
“I see what you mean,” said Leo.
Collin continued, “there was such a delay in her coming out for the interview that there well could have been a get-together behind the scenes to decide who would take on the Lawtons today and get rid of them. She may have volunteered, or she may have been pushed into it. She had to go back and face the gang. It is a case of birds of a feather acting together against the Lawtons whom they perceived to be a common enemy-an enemy because they prick their pride and stir their envy.
“Again, it is a ‘conspiracy of sorts,’ as I call it. They have to turn their hatred on such a supposed enemy to preserve themselves, so they think in their ‘most warped and twisted of human emotions’. (The Daily Study Bible. The Letter to the Romans, William Barclay, P.28. The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, 1966). It’s the way their mind-set has been since their younger, formative years.”
“Paranoid,” quipped Leo Aidan.
“Yes, truly paranoid,” affirmed Collin. “They really felt the Lawtons were doing them harm. In reality, the Lawtons were just being themselves, and this hurt these proud envious ones, so they supposed the Lawtons to be enemies really doing them harm; very paranoid indeed.
“Another possible explanation of her behavior is that since she was a bully, and since a bully is a coward, she began to cower when the chips came down on her. The bully started to whimper when Durwin got firm