365 Days (Part 2) | ✓

201. Empathy

201. Empathy: Write about your feelings of empathy or compassion for another person.

I'm in love with the sky.

I'm in love with the delicious colors, the textures of clouds, and the utter variability of it at a moment's notice. In all moods and in all stages, it is always gorgeous. On clear days, the sky is such a pure, clear that I could suck on it. On stormy days, it's a tumbling mess of gray and I want to fall in it and get lost.

It's hard to see the sky in the big city. I travel more by subway here. There's an oppressiveness to being so far underground that goes beyond claustrophobia. It's being in something exuding manmade-ness in every line of hewn concrete. I don't like it. Whenever that static voice issues safety warnings over a crinkling intercom, I know the moments is almost come for me to exit, and I'm always the first one out of those automatic doors.

Usually I hurry along the dirty passageway to the stairways that lead to the surface without a sideways glance. My aim is that sky that I'm in love with. I don't want to look at my fellow humans, going along the same corridor with dull expressions as they exist in their own lives. I don't want to see the overused advertisements placed periodically on the walls. I definitely don't want to see the people with the guitars lining the way, strumming a very chords in the hope to make a few dollars. Or the vendors trying to sale you a bottle of water or a soda for a buck. Or the people with the cardboard signs explaining their plight, with their pleading eyes that search the passing crowds for another pair of eyes sympathetic enough to meet theirs.

I try not to look at any of it. Like any human, I am capable of turning off my compassion, and I do.

But then, she spoke.

As I strode past in my sensible shoes, eager for a glimpse of the sky before locked up in an office for the next eight hours, I heard a simple whisper that was so utterly broken that I stopped. I instinctively responded to the distress of another human and was making eye contact before I could stop myself.

"Please," she had said. Her eyes said the same thing.

She looked straight at me, humble and low. Yet it wasn't pity I felt for her. It was something stronger and not as disdainful. I felt her pain. I saw something in her eyes that I recognized. It was pain. I had felt it in a different way, but there it was.

"I've lost my job and I just need enough for this next week..." she said in a quiet voice, almost like she was ashamed.

And she was. I saw that too.  I saw a lot of things aching in her sad face.

My hardness melted away, quite against my will. There was nothing I wanted more than to place a smile on her face: not for the sake of seeing it, but for what it stood for. I tried to switch this off. I was one of the people who passed women like her by, without a single glance. What had made me stop?

Moment of weakness, I told myself flippantly, but the pain I felt for her negated that statement. Maybe she was a victim of a circumstances or maybe her position was the result of her own bad decisions. In any case, I wanted to make her able to see the sky and leave this dank subway.

In a quick motion of the secretary I was, I flung out every bill I had in my purse into her tin can. It was a good amount. Cash was accepted everywhere. It was handy to have. Now it was hers.

Her eyes widened in shock. "Oh, thank you--" she gushed in gratitude.

I didn't want her thanks, though. Because the joy I had from her smile was quite a reward in itself. Maybe there were some things better than the sky.

*

A/N: I can't believe I had to make a new book to finish this challenge, haha. But anyway, I thought I'd do a cute story today. To all my old readers: welcome back. 😈 To all my new readers: Hello, I'm Hannah, and I hope you stick with me through this challenge! Updates are daily. 😄 See y'all tomorrow...