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"We're not living in the real world"

I was on the bus on the way home this evening. Everything was as usual. I was plugged into my MP3 player which was pumping out Blondie, minding my own business on the bus, staring out the window. Just before I reach home the traffic runs into a bottleneck which slows everything to a near stand-still. The bus was stuck in traffic and moving very slowly.

Through the window I saw two men walking up steps from a park onto the footpath that ran alongside the road. At first I didn't notice them for any particular reason other than that they were occupying the space that I was staring at through the window. That's why my attention focused on them as they came up onto the footpath from the steps and stopped on reaching the top.

At the corner where they now stood there was an internet caf. One of the men knelt down on one knee and appeared to me to be tying his shoelace. As I've said I hadn't noticed them for any particular reason before but it suddenly occurred to me that something suspicious was happening. The man kneeling down wasn't tying his shoelaces, he was crouched down at the entrance to the internet caf. His colleague was standing beside him looking around him. When he glanced in my direction I did my usual timid look away.

I timidly looked back at them again as the bus continued to move nowhere. They were both dressed pretty similarly: Dark casual clothes, jackets slightly heavier than the weather required and wearing small backpacks. Neither well nor badly dressed. Both appeared in their mid twenties to early thirties. I was beginning to think that the crouching man was going to charge through the door of the caf. He looked as if he was under starters orders.

Beginning to think that something criminal was about to happen I looked closer. I then saw what the kneeling man was doing. He had a tobacco pouch opened up and was collecting cigarette butts that were discarded at the doorway to the internet caf. He must have noticed a couple of good ones as he came up the steps. It hadn't occurred to me before because both men were reasonably well dressed but I realized then that they were probably homeless. The back packs were not obvious giveaways to begin with, many an office worker carries similar to work, but when combined with the cigarette butt gathering and what I now saw to be dirty faces it all added up to that.

Over the last couple of years I have insulated myself from such harsh facts of life as homelessness and poverty to the extent that I had nearly forgotten about them. It wouldn't surprise me if I were to find out that the homeless chaps concerned were drug addicts or alcoholics. I wouldn't be surprised to learn they might be willing to mug me if they thought I had enough to be worthwhile, and since they were willing to stoop for a cigarette butt that may not be a lot. Nevertheless I couldn't help thinking that with only a few changes to my life I could be in their shoes or vice versa. I probably need to remember that more often.

Learn more about this author, Sean McGoldrick.
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