Unscene #3

UnScene #3: I knitted a scarf for a friend.  I saw a beggar at the train station.

Scarf

It took me three weeks and eight balls of yarn, but finally I finished it – my first knitting project, a beginner-basic scarf.  I loved how thick and soft it was, how gracefully it seemed to drape around my neck and shoulders.  I felt the genuine warmth and pride of having something to show that was the product of my own two hands.  The scarf would make the harsh winter more bearable, if not downright pleasant.

I walked through the crowds at the train station with my back straight and my eyes on alert, self-conscious because of my scarf.  No one would notice it or me, but that didn’t matter.  I knew.  It made me a tad bit more confident.  I bought my ticket and sat down on the nearest bench to wait for my train, looking around to see whether anyone was looking at me. And of course, no one was.  For at that time, the people were all looking somewhere else.

At a man in particular, who sat with his back against the wall under the big clock.  He was clearly a beggar.  His hair was a dirty mess; he had not shaved for at least a week.  He had no coat to protect him from the winter’s cold, and his shoes were tattered and falling apart.  In front of him was an empty plastic cup of instant noodles in which passersby could drop their cold, unneeded coins.  Men like him were often seen at train stations, but they were not stared at, no.  Most people choose to look the other way, but not in this case.  Because the beggar had started shouting.

“Don’t throw your damned coins at me like garbage!” he yelled.  “I still have my pride.  I’m still a man!  I’m still a man!”

He was madly beating his fists against his chest, against his thighs.  People in his immediate vicinity quickly dispersed, moving as far away from him as they could.  Soon, two of the station’s security guards were rushing toward him, threatening him that he’d be thrown back out into the freezing streets if he didn’t keep quiet.

Instantly the beggar quailed.  In my eyes, he seemed to shrivel.  The fire of anger and hurt pride that was blazing on his face and in his voice just a moment ago was suddenly gone, and he was shrinking, retreating into a posture of defeat and misery that made him once again just another beggar no one wanted to look at for too long; something less than a man.

I don’t know what came over me then.  I stood up and walked toward him, unwinding the scarf from my neck along the way.  I crouched in front of the beggar, holding out my scarf to him.

“Mister?  Here, you can have my scarf,” I offered.  “I made it myself.”

He looked up at me, and at my beautiful scarf.  Slowly he reached for it and draped it around himself, sighing at the comforting warmth.  Something alive lit up in his eyes again as he looked back at me.

“It’s a good scarf,” he said.  I nodded.

“I’m quite proud of it,” I told him, shy all of a sudden.

“I was very proud, too, not so very long ago.”

His eyes dimmed again, staring off into the distance, into his shrouded memories.  His hands fondled the ends of the scarf.  I stood up and walked slowly away. 

Somehow I couldn’t hold my head up so high anymore.