The Senior Common Room at St Anselm's: II. The Queue

The discussion began with an unusual degree of indignation.

"I simply do not understand it," declared Mr Blottisham, placing his teacup on its saucer with unnecessary emphasis.

Professor Quillibrace looked up from his newspaper.

"Do not understand what?"

"Queue-jumpers."

Miss Stray smiled.

"Have you encountered one?"

"Encountered? I was practically invaded by one."

"Oh dear."

"There I was at the station, patiently awaiting my turn, when a gentleman walked directly to the ticket window and announced he merely wished to ask a quick question."

Quillibrace folded the newspaper.

"And was it a quick question?"

"That is entirely beside the point."

"I suspected it might be."

"The point is that everyone else had questions as well."

Miss Stray nodded thoughtfully.

"I've often wondered why queue-jumping feels so serious."

Blottisham looked surprised.

"Because it's cheating."

"Yes."

"But why?"

"It just is."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Whenever someone says 'it just is,' philosophy usually begins."

Blottisham sighed.

"I knew you'd say that."

The Professor reached for the latest essay.

"Our anonymous author proposes an interesting explanation."

"He usually does."

"He suggests that a queue is not merely a line of people."

"What else could it be?"

"A machine."

Blottisham looked around the room.

"I've been standing in queues for over sixty years."

"Indeed."

"I have yet to hear one make the slightest mechanical noise."

"Not that kind of machine."

Miss Stray accepted the paper.

"'A machine for manufacturing fairness.'"

Blottisham considered this.

"I rather like that."

"You do?"

"Yes."

"It sounds expensive."

Quillibrace closed his eyes briefly.

"The fairness is not manufactured from metal."

"No?"

"It is manufactured from agreement."

There was a pause.

Blottisham frowned.

"So..."

"Yes?"

"If everyone abandoned the agreement..."

"...there would no longer be a queue."

"There would merely be a crowd."

Miss Stray looked out of the window.

"That seems rather important."

"What does?"

"The difference between a queue and a crowd."

Blottisham shrugged.

"One is much more annoying."

"Yes."

"But structurally."

Quillibrace nodded approvingly.

"A crowd is governed largely by physical proximity."

"And a queue?"

"By remembered time."

Blottisham blinked.

"I'm sorry?"

"The person at the front is not there because they are physically superior."

"No."

"They are there because they arrived earlier."

"Obviously."

"So where is that fact stored?"

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"In... yesterday?"

"No."

"In memory?"

"Whose memory?"

Blottisham hesitated.

"Everyone's?"

Miss Stray shook her head gently.

"Not everyone's individually."

"No?"

"The queue remembers."

Blottisham stared at her.

"You've lost me."

"The line itself is the memory."

She pointed with her teaspoon.

"Every person's position tells a story."

"This person arrived before that person."

"That person arrived before someone else."

"The order carries the history."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Precisely."

Blottisham leaned back.

"So when someone jumps the queue..."

"...they are pretending to have waited."

"Yes."

"But they haven't."

"No."

"So they are attempting to alter the past."

The room became unexpectedly quiet.

Blottisham looked faintly alarmed.

"I hadn't realised queue-jumping involved time travel."

"It doesn't."

"Then why does it feel as though something impossible has happened?"

Miss Stray answered before Quillibrace could.

"Because everyone else can see that the history is false."

Another silence.

Then Blottisham said,

"I suppose that's why nobody objects when someone says, 'I'm terribly sorry, I think I was actually here before you.'"

Quillibrace nodded.

"An excellent observation."

"They're not asking for special treatment."

"No."

"They're asking for the history to be corrected."

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked absurdly pleased.

"I do occasionally contribute."

"You frequently contribute," said Miss Stray.

"It is simply difficult to predict when."

Blottisham accepted this as a compliment.

After a moment he asked,

"Do animals form queues?"

Quillibrace considered.

"Some species certainly form orderly sequences."

"But not queues?"

"I suspect very few would become morally offended by queue-jumping."

"Perhaps geese."

"Perhaps."

Miss Stray laughed.

"I think the interesting thing is that queues only work because complete strangers trust one another."

"In what sense?"

"We all accept a small delay because we believe everyone else will accept the same delay."

"So?"

"So the queue is really a tiny society."

Blottisham looked towards the corridor.

"I've never thought of standing outside the post office as participating in civilisation."

"Yet perhaps you were."

The Professor folded the essay carefully.

"We tend to admire civilisation when it produces cathedrals."

"And universities," added Blottisham.

"And universities."

"But civilisation spends rather more of its time producing queues."

Blottisham stood to refill the teapot.

"I shall never look at one in quite the same way again."

"No?"

"No."

"I shall probably become even more irritated by queue-jumpers."

Quillibrace smiled.

"As philosophy advances, Mr Blottisham..."

"Yes?"

"...our patience with metaphysical errors does not necessarily increase."

Miss Stray looked thoughtfully into her cup.

"Perhaps that's because some of the smallest injustices are also the easiest to recognise."

No one spoke for a while.

Then Blottisham looked towards the tea tray.

"I trust we're queuing for the last biscuit."

"Naturally," said Quillibrace.

"And who is first?"

The Professor glanced at Miss Stray.

"I believe," he said, "history has already decided."