Tuesday, November 12, 2019

autumnal (and a picture I didn't take)


I love these dank and chilly mornings, when the mist makes it look as though we live in the middle of the countryside (and then it lifts, and the temperature is a balmy 74 degrees).

But this isn't the mental image that will stay with me today.  I was walking to buy a salad at Trader Joe's at lunchtime today - a route to the university village that tales me through the music school, and then past a little enclosure surrounded by wood palings - and inside that are recycling bins, where the university janitors dump stuff.  I suddenly saw a thin brown hand that was reaching out from inside, rattling the bolt.  I'll confess - my split-second reaction was "oh, that'd make an amazing picture" - but I'm glad to say that before I could act on the thought, I'd moved over to the fencing and wriggled the bolt open, and let out the poor guy who'd been stuck in there: a man, I'd say, between 60 and 70, very emaciated, probably South Asian, and foraging for recyclable cans and plastic bottles inside.  He was very grateful: I kept saying how terrible that he was there, and that I hoped he'd not been there too long; he kept saying thank you, thank you - he didn't have very much English.  I just can't get my head around the fact that someone must have locked him in there - and no one else seemed to have noticed.  

The image of that hand reaching out will stick with me much more vividly than any photo I might have taken.

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