A couple of weeks ago I took a walk through the city, doing some grocery shopping. During that time the city festival was taking place, which is why – despite orientation lines for the blind on the ground – almost ran into one of those anti vehicle obstacles. Fortunately I realised it just in time.
However, the same wasn’t true for the cyclist about 50 m further down the street, standing right across the pathway in front of the Rewe store. Thus also right across said orientation lines. Which I wasn’t able to see.
In front of that Rewe store sat a homeless guy, just as always. That isn’t unusual, because he’s sitting there, as I now know, almost every day. Local drinkers seem to find a quiet spot here as well quite often. Therefore exactly the kind of people others usually tend to avoid.
So as I am walking straight towards that cyclist, blissfully unaware of doing so, I hear someone calling out from right behind me on my right side “Watch out, watch out!”. Since I had just passed that spot no more than two seconds ago, I was very aware that only that single homeless guy could have been calling out for me and thus had shocked that cyclist from his daydreaming and had him leave while at the same time making me aware of the obstacle.
At first I didn’t think much of it and I simply went on my way. But then it came to me that someone with nothing to give had just held out his hand over me in protection. And I became aware of the small bill I had in my pocket. So I turned around on my heel, approached the man, still sitting on the ground, and asked him whether it had been him calling after me.
His reaction makes me sad even today, weeks later. He ducked down and quietly said that it wasn’t him. Even when I asked him again whether he was entirely sure, he fearfully shook his head no and once more said that it wasn’t him. The poor man was scared of a blind guy with a hat. Yet I’d like to think of myself as rather non-threatening…
I still gave him that bill. I hope it brought him some small joy. Maybe I should stop by and give him some of my change more often.
