Witness to a Compassionate Act

WITNESS TO A COMPASSIONATE ACT Given only an hour for lunch, I hurried to the McDonalds outlet opposite my office. It was extremely crowded, as one would expect during the rush hour. The stench of the place hit me like an invisible wall as soon as I stepped over the threshold – fryer oil and freshly cooked meat made for that distinct smell that one could really get at only a fast food restaurant. Different people from all walks of life were crammed into that one small fast food joint, making me feel extremely claustrophobic as I manoeuvred my tray out of the queue and to a small table that had just been cleared up near the cashier. The table was slick with grease and incredibly slimy, but I put my tray down nonetheless and listened to the crackling sounds of the paper as I subconsciously unwrapped the lime yellow paper protecting my burger. There was an incessant whine in the air as cashiers pressed buttons and oven bells sounded, the individual high-pitched squeals all melding into headache-inducing white noise. The constant chatter and babble of the people around me made it no better. Three schoolgirls over in the farthest queue from me were gossiping so loudly that I now knew about the exploits of half the girls in their year and which girl had had an unfortunate accident on a school camp last year. A lone monk stood in the queue, his grey robes, shaven head and tan brown skin standing out amidst the sea of the colourfully and casually dressed that flowed all around him. Across from the monk stood two people, Europeans from the looks of them, red in the face and shouldering backpacks that could have been twice their width. I wondered if the people standing behind them could see anything apart from those rucksacks. In front of the backpackers, a lone woman who seemed so ordinary compared to all these other people was placing her order, pointing at various places above the waiter’s head so he had to crane his neck to see what she wanted.

In the queue