Perspective

2:34, Wednesday afternoon.

“Oh, shit! I hate this.” The Suit thinks to himself.

In his early thirties and successful. His place in the world is justified by his self reliance. As he was walking up the beach side of Acland street towards The Vineyard, something impinged on his well deserved equanimity. On reaching the open area in front of the arcade leading into the Woolworths supermarket, he became aware of the beggar.

A scruffy wisp of a beard, dreadlocks, torn jeans and a grimy wind cheater. The tall, scrawny figure hunted the passing crowd with intense, blue eyes. Unclean! Unproductive! The vaguely threatening creature was assessing, evaluating, choosing it’s prey.

“I do not need this now. It has been a good day. Why are they allowed? Pestering decent people. Too bloody lazy to get a job. Just a blood sucking parasite, living off my efforts, my good nature. Surely the police could move them on.” The Suit hopes against hope to slide past without observation, or worse, actual interaction. 

Too late. Eye contact.

The Suit feels more than sees the beggar single him out and commence it’s approach. If it would only remain an ‘it’, then he could just ignore it, brush past it, continue on without the need to acknowledge it. A dark part of him, a part he did not quite want to admit to, let alone like, wanted that confrontation. Wanted the beggar to come on too belligerently, too aggressively. Then he would have cause to deal with it as it deserved. To leave it in the gutter, a heap of crumpled trash to be swept away by the council street sweepers.

But it doesn’t comply. “Excuse me could you spare some change?” The beggar asks in a polite voice. The Suit reluctantly but inevitably feels the beggar slipping sideways from being an it to being a him. From being a threat to being a victim. Transforming into a target for expected compassion. 

Noblesse oblige.

Wavering for the briefest of moments, The Suit capitulates, acquiescing to society and brusquely passes a fiver to the extended hand, grunting a “Sure.” then escapes further interaction by the force of his momentum. The desire for a shiver of revulsion crosses his forebrain, but he suppresses it. He washes the ugly incident from his mind by force of will and continues towards his business lunch with the slightest of shrugs.

*

2:37, Wednesday afternoon.

“Oh the poor dear.” The Doctor’s Wife spies the young man at the end of the arcade as she exits the supermarket. In her forties, she is a concerned, socially aware citizen. She cares. Deeply.

“What has the world come to when a fine young man like this is forced to beg for the very food he needs to live? In a country like this?” She thinks to herself, her heart going out to the hansom young man with a nice face an the interesting hair. “He obviously has a good mind, just look at the cleaver way he has made those second hand clothes work. If only someone would give him a chance he would get back on his feet.”

The Doctor’s Wife makes a bee line straight for the beggar. Without a second’s hesitation she takes him gently, but firmly by the elbow, and wearing her brightest smile says “Hello young man, come, let me buy you a meal. Do you like fish and chips?” all the while man handling him south down Acland street towards the fish and chip shop, where she positions him on a seat at one of the outside tables.

The beggar is too flummoxed to speak, let alone argue, and finds himself sitting, embarrassedly waiting for, he knows not what. A couple of minutes pass and the Doctor’s Wife emerges from the shop door and beams at the young dread locked man saying. “You just relax and wait there. I have bought you a good meal and it will be brought out shortly. Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you, but I will be off. You just get that meal into you and remember, that no matter how bad things seem there are always people who care about you.” With that the Doctor’s Wife walked off, shoulders back, head high, safe in the knowledge of a good deed well done. She knows that he would feel uncomfortable with her watching. He will enjoy the meal and his faith in mankind will be boosted without his self esteem suffering any further harm.

*

2:45, Wednesday afternoon.

As soon as the pushy woman’s back had merged with the crowd, The Backpacker jumped up from the ‘fish and chip’ shop table, and with embarrassment flushing his cheeks, he strode back up Acland street towards the Espy Hotel. “Bloody Hell, these Australians are weird.” He thought to himself as he escaped that crazy lady.

A few minutes later and he spies a couple of his fellow backpackers from Sweden, sitting at a court yard table drinking beer. At 26 years of age, the Engineering Graduate from Stockholm University was on the last leg of his post study, backpacking trip around the world, before heading home to work with his father’s firm in Gothenburg. “Bloody fish and chips. Do I look like a flesh eating Englishman or something?” He groaned to himself as he made his way to the bar to order a beer.

Most of his mates had got themselves part time, cash jobs as waiters or kitchen hands, but he had found that, for him, begging paid a much better hourly rate. He could get forty to fifty dollars in an hour when it was busy down Acland street and with none of the hassles of dealing with bosses. Still shaking his head at the thought of eating dead fish, he ordered a vegetarian pizza and went back to the court yard to sit with his two mates from Sweden and the girl from Germany he had recently met in the hostel.

He must remember to Skype his mother tonight, Swedish time, and hit her up for some more money for a flight to Sydney, and perhaps a decent hotel for a few nights. He had seen enough of Melbourne, and he would be heading home to start working soon, so a couple of nights in five star accommodation would not go amiss…