Why Not?
Token Tales — Reflections on invisibility, presence, kindness, and what it means to be noticed through small handmade notes.
The line at Zurich passport control had been over an hour. Long enough that people were tired, irritable, checking watches.
Schoscher, a redheaded immigration agent, was smiling through all of it — welcoming people, making small talk, working the line like it wasn’t the hundredth time that day.
While she checked our passports, I looked at her nameplate and wrote her a quick note on the back of one of my small painted tokens — thanking her for her kindness to strangers, on a day when most people had none to spare.
“This is for me?”
“Yes.”
She said “okay” slowly and read through the message tentatively. Then flipped over to look at the painting.
“Why do you do this?” she asked, still looking a little confused, a little smile appearing on her face.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I’m only doing my job,” she said with a shrug.
“And I’m thanking you for doing it so kindly,” I responded.
She smiled and kept looking at it.
Her colleague leaned over. “Look,” she said handing it to him, “she made me this gift. That is so nice.”
He raised his eyebrows, smiled, nodded — and looked at me.
I pulled out another token, wrote his name on it — Toksöz — and handed it to her to pass along.
He looked at it, confused. “But I didn’t even help you.”
“Yes,” I said. “But you help so many, every day.”
They both looked at each other, then at me. I kind of felt bad for holding up the line a few seconds longer. But as we left, Schoscher said: “I will always remember you. You made my day.”
માનસી
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