Mendicants are nothing new in this city. They walk around, feet crusty with months of ingrained dirt. Seeing them huddled in the corner trying to sleep is not a new experience. In a city that's deadened to humanity, no one gives a shit about them, really.
Sometimes their situation gets to me. Don't look at me like that, must I be Cruella 24/7? It's tiresome being Cynical Miss Cruella all the time, so I had a soft moment going to Watson's (store of choice!).
A boy was face-down on the curbside, frying in the punishing heat. I wondered if he was dead, and wanted to poke him, but he looked positively bio-hazardous. Walking in, I thought "Maybe I should buy him a bottle of water."
I didn't. I forgot to.
Anyway I walked out of the store after about thirty minutes and the boy was still there. Face down, unmoving. Concerned, thinking he was dead and not wanting a dead body to rot in the streets at 1PM - imagine the smell and flies - I walked up to the security guard for Western Union, which was right beside Watson's. My heart was breaking. Poor kid. I asked the guard if that kid was fine, fully expecting him to ring for an ambulance, but unmoved, he said:
"Bali'ng rugby ana gabi-i."
I looked back at the boy - who had picked that exact time to wake up and was currently weaving his way through the crowd - and I really didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Maybe the plan Chuck and I have in place for them really is the final solution: round 'em all up and just send them on their way... anything should be better than getting your kicks off a bottle of contact cement.
I got a quotable out of it though. The W.U. security guard is my new hero. So...
"Nag-rugby ka gabi-i?".
1 comments:
Yeah.. round them all up and kaboom!puff!.. (pa-smoke effect) there goes doing the world a big favor hahah too cruel but with all that's happening you get to have weird ideas like this. round them all up somewhere isolated not in Skyrise ok?hehehe kiddin'. miss you, NC! :)
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