…So I bid her farewell and started walking up the Main Road. I longed for my bed. It had been a long night, and everything around was orbiting my head. It did not take long before I heard footsteps approaching me from behind.
I turned to check and saw a lad, alone, coming almost running from the opposite pavement, getting ready to cross the road to my side. In anticipation, I immediately brought my right hand discreetly into my right pocket, where my dagger lay. But as he neared me, I relaxed since my intuition did not judge him to be a threat.
He reached me and got to walk by my side, gazing at me hesitantly, without uttering a word, while I was also staring at him intently, waiting for his intention.
“I’m hungry,” he finally enunciated and kept looking at me in an imploring, plaintive way. The truth is I could see that by myself; poor fellow, he was like a bag of bones. I commiserated with him. I took out the few coins that remained tinkling in my pocket and placed them onto his palm. He lifted the handful forthwith, right in front of his eyes, and began to count.
“Give me more,” he opened his mouth for a second time.
“Sorry, amigo, that’s all I have.”
“Give me more! I don’t want to rob you.”
“You shouldn’t say that. It’s not polite.”
“Don’t make me angry! Give me everything you have! Or I’ll take it by force!” he then said, trying to look cruel, though he wasn’t.
“By force? How? I don’t think you have the capacity to do that… physically, I mean,” I told him in an indifferent tone that denoted genuine bewilderment as to how he could possibly exert force on me, comparing our physiques.
He remained silent for a few seconds, looking at me awkwardly, until he grasped what I had just said and reassumed his beseeching attitude: “I’m hungry.”
We continued walking together. Along the way, I explained to him that I fully understand him and sympathize with him, but I am not responsible for his condition; that I was only a stranger in his city who just arrived yesterday; and whatever help I could offer, I had offered it already.
He also explained to me that he is not a bad guy. Necessity presses him; the struggle for survival. He spoke to me about his family; his minor siblings who waited famished in the shanty for a bite of bread.
In the meantime, we’d made it to the gate of my inn. “Good luck,” I wished him. “Good luck to you too,” he also said before he turned around and set off, resuming his quest for the day’s food.
The story you’ve just read is part of my Real Stories of Real People collection, where I recount encounters with remarkable characters I’ve met on the road. You can read the whole series on my blog here. And if you’d like to take them with you on your e-reader or as a physical book—and support my work—you can get the book on Amazon for the price of a coffee.
