———————————————————————————————————————-
12th August 2005
i started the day with the intent of getting to work before 8:30 a.m. i got off the 33 at Shandwick Place at 8:25 a.m — loads of time for me to get to Drumsheugh Gardens before 8:30 a.m. but, as fate would have planned it, i got in at 9:15 a.m.
this explains why.
a frail, old blind man got on the 33 at the Nicolson Street bus stop. other commuters helped him get on the bus, but otherwise, he was travelling alone. he alighted at the same stop i did at Shandwick Place. at first, a fellow passenger guided him to the bus doors. since i was near the door, i decided to help him off the bus too. once on the sidewalk, he then asked either of us helping him to lead him to the taxi station right in front of Ryan’s Bar, just off the bend of Queensferry Road. at this juncture, my fellow good Samaritan rushed off to work, leaving him with me.
the long and short of this story was, when he learned that the taxi station was moved from its original location to a temporary taxi bay just near the Greggs store, he asked me if i could walk him to the Boots branch along Shandwick Place. by then, we had crossed the other side of the street. it was 8:50 a.m. — missing my 8:30 a.m. target was a foregone conclusion.
once at the Boots store, i learned from the reaction of the ladies at the Dispensary (the Pharmacy) that he was a regular. he’d been showing up at 9:30 a.m., almost every Friday. asking them to call a cab for him. on a previous occasion, he had left the store - too impatient to wait for the taxi to arrive.
"sir, how many times do we have to tell you, we are a pharmacy, not a taxi service??", the Boots lady said, her voice raised with marked irritation.
"can’t you see i’m blind?! i can’t call a cab for myself. i can’t afford someone to help me go around!"
although i could see where the Boots people were coming from, still, i thought they could have shown more compassion towards the guy. he wasn’t disrupting the store. he wasn’t causing them trouble. alright, maybe he was inconveniencing them a little bit. but the store would definitely benefit from extending a little community service, wouldn’t it?
after extracting a promise from the old guy (i never got his name. he never asked me for mine.) not to fight with the ladies & to wait for the taxi to collect him; and extracting a promise from the Boots ladies that they would call a cab for him, i made a quiet exit, and rushed to work.
it would have been a genuine good deed had not it been for the fact that post priori, i could feel a part of me slighted by the old man’s omission. true, i never did ask if he usually hailed for a cab here. but he could at least have told me about his regular Friday morning Boots routine. i would’ve still have helped him get a taxi, but maybe not from Boots.
the duality of our actions and how they dwell in shades of grey.
something to mull over a warm cup of green tea.
——————————————————————————
No comments:
Post a Comment