A Helping Hand

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A Helping Hand


  Bleak puffs of smoke pumped the air like a gas chamber, as the tumultuous blares and horns of sirens blew up from every direction and the air was made putrid from tufts of vape and cigars. Yep, this is L.A alright, I thought, as I pushed my way through flocks of middle-aged, burly men with more hair on their chins than teeth in their mouths. Suddenly, I was stopped by an aged white man on the sidewalk, his legs scraggly and decrepit from misuse, and a small top hat flipped upside down next to him. As countless tripped to avoid him, I halted, a flash in my eyes as I contemplated what it was like back when I was in this man’s very same shoes, hardly a few rupees to my name on the streets of India, before we worked our ways around some fortune and made it down here to America. In a flash, I fished from spare change from my back pocket, and flung it into the man’s hat before scurrying away with my comrades, who had long abandoned me since. Yet as I departed, I caught from my peripheral vision a hint of glee in the homeless man’s face, lit up as though reflected off of my bright silver coins, and I grinned.


 “We can’t help everyone. But everyone can help someone” - Ronald Reagan

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