literature

Original Sin

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Literature Text

The tragedy of this city never really hits you until you see it like this: 5:30 in the morning, in the dead of winter, through the window of a city bus. No businessmen on their way to meetings, no street vendors, no school kids. Colors are dull and distorted under the ghastly fluorescent streetlights, snowdrifts are grey and melancholy. It's not like a nightmare; more like if you desaturated  the hallucinations you get when you're sick and your fever gets too high.

Out of the maybe eleven or twelve people on this bus, it seems that I'm the only one not stuck in the pre-dawn, pre-caffeine haze that hovers over every morning of every weekday for every working stiff and paper-pusher in the good ol' U S of A. and as I'm staring out the grimy window of the bus--that's when I first see that tragedy.

There's one of those ghastly fluorescent streetlights at just the right angle so that it illuminates the first few yards of an alley. And there they are: a group of maybe four people, each huddled in what looks like piles of old blankets, torn coats and grimy newspapers.

These eleven or twelve other people on the bus with me--they don't even bat an eye. Either they don't notice or they don't care, and they never have.

And I've been taking this bus with them every morning for two years now.

I leave work less than an hour after I get there--my boss can't stop me, he's not even there yet. And I retrace my bus route, slipping on the patches of ice that formed on the sidewalk overnight, making my way back to the alleyway.

The sun's up now, and the joggers are out, even in the bitter cold. Shops are opening up. The city seems to be regenerating itself, with the early birds coming out of hiding for that pesky proverbial worm. It's been transformed from the desaturated hallucination of my pre-dawn trip to the office to the early morning hustle and bustle of a waking city.

I finally make it back to that alleyway--only one of those four figures is still there, huddled in his pile of blankets and clothing scraps and yellowed newspapers. And like those eleven or twelve working stiffs and paper pushers on the bus that morning, the joggers and other passersby either don't notice or don't care about the tragedy right before their eyes.

This skeletal little figure is at least partially awake, because he's staring pointedly away from me.

"What's your name?" I ask him quietly.

"Randall. Why you out here, why you askin'?"

"Just wondering...why are you out here?"

"W..waitin' for my boy. My son."

"Where is he?"

"He was here this mornin'.  Maybe he's lookin' for a job..." he trails off, but he sounds unsure.

And I'm not even thinking yet, not even hearing any of the waking city around me. I get my lunch out of my stylish messenger bag and hand it to Randall. After a second's contemplation (How long between here and the office, how long does it take to get hypothermia? Doesn't matter.) I take off my jacket and give it to him, and then my scarf.

"Give that to your kid, okay?"

I think he said something to me as I turned around, but I couldn't really hear him. I just turn around and walk away.

And when I get back out on the sidewalk, no one even looks up. No one notices the man huddling in the alleyway, clutching whatever possessions I could give him. No one notices the twenty-something girl in the lightweight pants and short sleeved blouse standing still on the sidewalk in the dead of winter.

I head back to work, glaring at the people who won't even glance at me, who I know won't even notice Randall.

Tragedy isn't just the old man and his son in that alley; it's the joggers and paper pushers that won't even bat an eye.

Original sin wasn't just Eve eating the apple; it was Adam standing by and not saying a damn word.
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