The thin, young man with the face so white it glowed like the moon sat cross legged on the filthy tiled floor of the stinking subway. He wore a jaunty hat on a head that sagged from trembling shoulders. His only possession, a thin jacket, scrunched up in front of him. He didn't even have the energy to beg.
A group of suits walked past, faces flushed from the excesses of the after work drink. As they walked they threw snide jeers at him - like stones at a medieval prisoner in the stocks. The limp soul didn't look up.
'Are you hungry?' I asked, stupidly. The pointy chin in the shadow of the hat moved up and down. I left something I'd just bought from a late opening supermarket. I looked back from the stairs. His face was turned towards me and I was getting a thumbs up from one fist. It was like a jolt of electricity, this connection with a stranger.
On the journey home I wondered what series of events would need to happen to lose touch so completely with the functioning world. And how many of us have been close to it at some point?
Sadder still was the realisation of the magnitude of the task facing this ashen faced lost soul to find his way back.
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We met a homeless man once who told us his story. Once happily married, once a lecturer at a university somewhere in the North... then there was a horrible tragedy (I don't remember what it was) and he started drinking... then he lost everything... and then here he was, cold and dirty and hunched on a bench in Preston. That too made me realise how easily it could happen to any of us.
I'm glad you looked back at him and got to see the thumbs up.
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