Feeling So Sick I Was Unable to Walk When a Man Practically Supported Me to the Toilets.
During my nineteenth year, my morning travel meant taking an packed public transport. It remained jammed and would always be standing room only by the time I boarded.
One particular morning, I began feeling incredibly sick as the bus rocked around the bends. I repeatedly told myself to persevere for a few more stops before the bus got to where I needed to get off, and then I could rush hurriedly toward the most convenient public restroom to throw up.
The bus was approaching the road leading to the stop when I understood I wasn’t going to last. In an instant, it seemed a fog descended upon me. The world became blank and silent; similar to when one turned off the audio. My mind raced, “I’m going to faint”.
Luckily I was close to the driver inside the vehicle, so I managed a couple of steps to ask the driver and asked the driver to open the doors, informing him I needed to get ill. The driver opened the doors and I stumbled out on to the pavement.
I was determined not to vomit before multiple lanes of cars, so I forced myself up and began attempting to make my way across to the park on the other side, where I believed I could at least find some privacy near some foliage to throw up. Yet I must have fainted. I sensed my limbs, but I was unable to walk or see clearly, leading me to start dragging myself toward the park.
“You right, love?”
In that instant, I got scooped up. I felt an arm around my waist and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I told this mysterious stranger that I had to to vomit. Therefore, he almost supported my weight into a nearby building and put me into the female bathroom. He asked me whether I required him to wait for me but I said no.
After a short while, I regained my composure to the point of sitting down when from beyond the door I heard his voice asking, “Are you OK, love? Do you need anything?” I could not to stand up right away but I was able to express my gratitude and after a few more minutes regained the function of my feet. I got myself home and then spent the following days getting over what turned out to be a nasty tummy bug.
I never saw the stranger’s face – merely his legs and a large container for tools he had with him – but he helped me, at a moment I was at my most vulnerable.
Frequently, society tends to make people self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. What he did was the kind of action that undoes that hardening of the heart. He demonstrated that humanity’s innate tendency is towards kindness, something I love in other people.
