Tuesday, January 23, 2007
He is Hungry! No Further Reading Required.
“I am hungry!” he cried in the metro station. “I’m retired, but the state refuses to pay me what I had paid for 50 years!” Silence covered the station. In his weary look, he was protesting in his own way... What else could he do? Too many things seemed to revolt him and he couldn’t take it any more. He told everyone his story, something that may happen to any of us one day. But, nobody listened. A young girl in front me preferred to change the song she was listening to in her ipod. The ladies next to me sank in their newspapers. Young man leaning against the wall escaped his eyes. People were indifferent. And I, I wanted to look at his eyes and tell him some comforting words, but I couldn’t. I just didn’t know what would comfort him. I felt ashamed to see a sixty-year-old man suffering helplessly in this way at a subway station. I was deeply ashamed, although I wasn’t a part of this silent society.
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4 comments:
Welcome to the real world!Poor and indigent!People were indifferent? No. People reacted that way because they were face to face with reality.
...
The young girl is a sweet princess.
The young man is a big star.
...
poof
Knowing from experience, the shyness of that society doesn't allow them to speak, to confort, to help. Like you also all of them continued to speak with that poor man, but silently, in their own head.
Interesting comments. Is silence a reaction of this soceity? Isn't it the silence that takes us to the darkness?
That remembers me of something I saw a few years ago, in my student days.
It happened at Mac Donalds door, Av. da Republica (by that time I used to eat that crap :P), a man screaming out loud "I'm hungry" and people passing by and ignoring him.
I believe people don't react because they are ashamed of what others may think if they do something. We all care a lot with what other think about us ("Don’t do that! Look everybody is looking at us!").
I also believe if someone takes the first step in doing something, others will follow because if that person has done that, maybe it isn't anything wrong in doing it.
And no, I also didn't do anything... I was a student by that time, and Portuguese students are always broke.
Cheers
FS
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