The Occasion

He is delicately solicitous of the old woman
reminiscent of Old World courtesy perhaps
a lingering ancestral memory deep within
the confines of his inner self of which he is
hardly conscious, but she identifies his concern
and is touched, though she admits to nothing.
Young he may seem yet he is a practised
medical technologist and she is a patient the
relationship one of professional dependency
yet tinged with that curious social contract
pitting youth against age and the propensity
of the aged to feel their entitlement to probe
and ask questions unrelated to the matter at
hand, and so he patiently replies, he masters
three languages. It is his pronounced accent
his name Sergei despite his professional manner
that belies awkwardness that spurs her to remark
her mother was proficient in many Eastern
European languages. This woman born in the
West accustomed to the social contract most
familiar to her of aloof disinterest of the other
was interested and questioned the medical
protocol being deployed, the undifferentiated
to her eyes visuals flashing on the screen 
continually diverting him from his concentration
to momentarily assure, describe and placate
her curiosity no doubt breathing a visceral sigh
of relief at her departure, alternately sighing in
fond memory of a grandmother barely recalled.