The day is just about to show its dim light of morn as I walk the streets to the bus stop. It was an out of the ordinary start to my day this week, just to get myself present on the futsal field to get sweaty. I know I desperately need the exercise considering the shape of my tummy lately. It seems all that walking up the stairs in office doesn't matter that much in that particular part. But never mind that.
It was early than my usual timing that brought me to notice that the path near the bus stop was in fact used by homeless people to sleep through the night. The comfiest spot of the perimeter I guess, with so many leafs of trees providing shade and privacy. A teenage boy, a woman with her baby by her side, and a man whom I assume was the husband made up the group.
I found myself passing them by, catching them in their awakening to a new day, to a new trespasser from their point of view. The man even fixed his eyes on me as if considering in his head to call the authorities to report myself in. It was with that kind of intensity, his eyes were on me to make sure that I am no more than an innocent pedestrian who just happens to walk in its rightful passage.
The bus stop was my destination, and there I was after safely passing through the unexpected setting. But to my shock, I noticed from afar the man and his wife started having an argument. Gradually it became nasty when the man struck his hand towards her. In front of her -and possibly his- crying baby he hit her while shouting words I could not hear.
Screaming, hitting, intimidating. How low and despiteful a man could be.
The woman could only do as much as to throw her hands in front of her in effort to provide some protection and to retaliate, in vain. To her relief, the man finally stood up, picked his cheap rugged guitar (a low life busker, I presume) and moved away from her. But the woman still in rage, stood up with her baby on one hand, tried to hit back with the other, desperate to gain some pride back.
A wrong move predictably. The maggot –for a man he is not, turned back and shoved her. Luckily, it wasn’t hard enough for the baby’s safety. He finally stopped and sat down. The mother with her baby stood still nearby, relieved the rage has stopped.
What spurs such violence? Towards the ones you are supposed to protect? What circumstance leads to such headlessness?
Poverty? Probably. Evil? Definitely.
I just know that my unshed tears which no one could see but me, means nothing to the pain she had to suffer from her coward husband. But then again, I was too, for not even trying to do anything. This I share, as my regret and hopefully, my redemption. So help me God.