Loneliness & the Coin
Daily stops at a red light.
Every day, the first thing on my way to wherever
is a four-road roundabout with mad traffic,
the unrelenting, militant kind that makes you reconsider your life choices.
Every day, there are beggars and buskers on my side of the in-flow.
There's a group of four or five acrobats, sprinting onto the crossing each time the light turns red.
There is an old woman in a wheel chair, and her poorly looking helper.
There is a guy with a healed gash in his head, who stumbles and bumbles along. He holds his hat upside down and mumbles at cars. There is another with a stained piece of paper, which he presses against your window. Nobody knows what it says.
None of them stand at another entry.
None of them speak to each other.
They pursue the same objective.
They all vie for the same cars.
More than once, somebody has said to me "they don't understand",
"how do these people not spread out,
take advantage of the captive market?"
Others speak with admiration,
about how resilient the poor are.
Survival knows no resilience.
Survival is unspoken, the biggest fight,
but the strongest bond. Forced maybe, but the strongest in a sea of elbows.
Coin, too, matters, and yet, it doesn't.
Two are stronger than one, three are stronger than two, four are stronger than three.
Perhaps one day you will rattle your tin,
with a gash in your head and nowhere to go.
A green phase with nothing to do,
is a long time to contemplate loneliness.
Trust me, the other four entries to the roundabout will be the least of your worries.