Spare Change
Nick labored through his early morning jaunt from his tiny, run-down city apartment to the commuter bus stop a block away, fighting the fumes of noisy vehicles and impatient pedestrians zig-zagging around him. All to get to his place of work as a marketing rep; a job he had grown to despise. The fog met the smog, and it pretty much summed up his demeanor.
He had just turned the corner and was momentarily startled by a homeless man who popped out from behind an elm tree like a character in a haunted house, without the “boo.”
“Spare some change?” asked the raggedy clad, raspy voiced man, with a sweaty palm extended. Nick sidestepped the meek fellow as if he were dodging a huge raindrop and scurried toward the bus stop, stealing intermittent spies of his wristwatch. His scheduled bus was two minutes away, and he used that time to glance at the man commissioning other people for spare change. He wanted time to fly by, but it was going in the opposite direction.
The bus finally arrived. He boarded and found the nearest seat closest to the side exit door, but his focus gravitated toward the unfortunate man. The bus pulled away, and Nick sat pondering his handling of the handout request and what he could’ve done differently. His thoughts drifted towards the book he brought with him; a time travel novel he was halfway through.
He flipped open to the page he left off at the night before and began reading. He perused about an instance of how a time traveler’s subtle interaction can alter that person’s future and the future’s of those in the subject’s circle.
He imagined himself as a time traveler and how he would’ve altered the homeless man’s life had he stopped and honored his request. A one minute exchange with the man wouldn’t alter his future. He would still be in the same spot beckoning other pedestrians, he surmised. He continued his mental debate on time travel, slowly spiraling his imagination into a deep daydream. He imagined having a lengthy conversation with the man about the value of his spare change and how the man insisted on rejecting society. He wondered how the man would describe his life and how he saw the world for better or worse. He imagined the man’s trials and tribulations and how much or little to believe.
His imaginary conversation with the vagabond was about to come to an end when a ding of the vertical pushbutton woke him from his morning fantasy. He gathered himself quickly and realized he had missed his stop. He hopped out of his seat and reached for the exit door as the bus was beginning to pull away. The alert driver spotted him in the rear view mirror, abruptly stopped, and let him off, huffing at the rider’s absent-minded action.
Nick scampered towards his job, which was now four blocks away. As he hurried, his recurring sentiment was, “I didn’t change the homeless man’s life, but he sure changed mine. I’m going to be late for work!”