on the day I was coming back from KL, I sat in the LRT on the way to BJ, and there was a monk and a man sitting in front of me. The monk was ... dirty. not dirty like that type of dirty, but just filthy kind of dirty. He was in his yellow robes, clutching a sack which definitely had seen better days. Slippers kind of torn and he was dozing off. The uncle, on the other hand, looked quite well to do. Kind of like those professor uncle's you'd see after retiring. A watch, polo tee which told me he'd been overseas, and a look that, in other places might have seen me smile at him.

But I did not smile. I avoided his gaze. Purely because I saw him shift to his left then recoil. Another auntie had sat down next to him, and in order to not have any bodily contact with her, he'd gone the other way, towards the monk. He had the look that told me he was quite annoyed with the auntie for getting him close to touching that monk next to him.

I thought what a huffy.


2 stops away from mine, a few minutes after the announcement, he woke the monk up with a gentle tap on the shoulders; kao liao, he said in Hokkien. The monk woke up and looked at him dazed, but grateful nevertheless. He started chatting to uncle in Hokkien with just everyday things like kao liao ha.. kao liao. I was too late, he saw me smile even though I everted my head swiftly. We came to the stop and both of them disembarked.

Just before he left, uncle turned around and gave me a smile, nodding to me as he stepped off onto the platform. I thought what a huffy I'd been.

Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.
~ James M. Barrie