Ice Cream

Tuesday night, I was coming home from dropping Siddiqua's camera off, and chatting with her for a bit. It's a Minolta S404 - The lens is superb, and the camera is really slick. It's a tad large, but the thing is quite hot, considering the cost.

So, on my way home, I remembered I had to get bread. I made the rounds and stopped off at the Quick Shoppe at the gas station nearby. While waiting in line, with the bread in my hand, I noticed a security guard, carrying a two-liter tub of peanut ice cream, waiting to cash his goods.

The silence of the Quick Shoppe made it easier to think, with nobody speaking to anyone, and everyone just doing what they had to do. As the guard got closer to checkout, I thought about why he might be buying it - for his family, perhaps - a gift to the ones he loves. It almost moved me to tears when I thought that he, and many others, are doing their simple jobs, and trying to live, and trying to treat their families once in a while.

Then there are those who, in a fit of madness, run in and take their lives, and break the lives of their families, and friends, and villages...

Then, he asked for a half-pack of Du Maurier ciggies, cashed in, and left.

Why can't we just love one another?

The photo, by the way, is of a vagrant in a suit, outside a bank in Port of Spain.