In Such Poor Health I Was Unable to Walk Until a Fellow Passenger Practically Supported Me to the Toilets.
At the age of my late teens, my regular journey to work meant taking an express bus. It remained jammed and was consistently standing room only by the time I got on.
During a certain commute, I was feeling quite nauseous when the coach rocked around each corner. I continuously reassured myself to hold on just a little longer until the bus arrived at my destination, and then I could make a mad dash toward the most convenient washroom to throw up.
We were coming down the street towards the destination as I realised I was unable to hold on. In an instant, it seemed a curtain fell over me. The world became hazy and muffled; as if someone turned off the audio. I thought, “I am about to pass out”.
Luckily I was close to the driver on the bus, so I took a few steps forward and asked the driver to pull over, telling him I was going to get ill. He opened the doors and I hurriedly stepped on to the pavement.
I was resolved to avoid being sick in view of six lanes of traffic, so I picked myself up and began attempting to walk toward the green space on the other side, where I thought I could at least discreetly hide near some foliage to vomit. But then I must have lost consciousness. I sensed my physical self, yet walking was impossible or see properly, so I began crawling towards my intended destination.
“You right, love?”
In that instant, someone picked me up. There was someone holding me and heard a man say, “You right, love?” I explained to this kind passerby that I had to to vomit. Therefore, he almost carried me down into an adjacent building and placed me in the ladies’ toilets. He wanted to know whether I required him to remain with me but I declined.
After a short while, I had recovered to the point of sitting on the toilet and from the other side of the door I heard his voice asking, “Are you OK, love? Is there anything you require?” I was incapable to rise at that moment but did manage to express my gratitude and shortly thereafter regained the function of my limbs. I made my way home and spent several days getting over what turned out to be a horrible case of gastroenteritis.
I never glimpsed the stranger’s face – merely his legs and the big container for tools he had with him – yet he rescued me, at a moment I was in my weakest state.
Frequently, society tends to make people self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His act was the type of kindness that undoes that hardening of the heart. He was proof that our default setting is to be kind, a quality I adore in other people.