Velociworld

The Cruel World

I think, once and a while, about the cognition we label poignant. What is it, really? I have an idea.

I was in the train station in Lisbon in 1975, catching a run to Costa de Estoril to lay upon the beach and burn like a chicken, under the fulgent sun, and ogle Portuguese, Spanish, and German girls with hirsute armpits.

The station was jam-packed, as we say, and it was a hassle to get to one's gate. In the confusion of that rush hour I noticed something underfoot. I looked down, and realized I was standing on a pair of rubber waders, the kind fishermen wear to wade into the cold waters to flyfish. Attached to these waders was a legless local man, a young fellow, about 25 (older than me, but young). He was apparently trying to catch a train, and was having a hell of a time with peoples like me stepping on the waders.

To be honest, I don't know why he was wearing them. He had no legs, and these appurtenances merely slowed him down, but I think they lent him a sense of wholeness, or completion. I think he felt like a complete man with those faux legs dragging after him as he clawed his way through the filthy terminal to his destination.

I apologized, of course, in a language I doubt he knew, but the look in his eyes was mesmerizing in its, well, poignancy. There, unadulterated, was humiliation, supplication, helplessness, shame. I felt like an ogre, treading upon him like that.

One of my companions spoke Spanish, fortunately, and he was able to ascertain the poor creature's destination, and station, through the similarities in language. I hoisted him in my arms, and carried him to his destination. He was not of gardenias, or rose petals, for sure. But I carried his loathesome body anyway, and I have never been so shamed in my life, even as I realized I was blameless.

Some people are certainly less fortunate than the rest of us, but I am generally immune to that. They reap what they sow, as a rule. But every now and then a true unfortunate crosses your path, and humbles you a bit. The cruel world, indeed.