sorry, not my stop

I was approached by a stranger looking for directions today while waiting for a metro; a circumstance not atypical in this city.

The stranger was a man in his late sixties, clean and nicely dressed with a watch and jewelry brandishing his wrist and cuff suggesting he is obviously an upstanding citizen from good means. He initially asked what the next station was and I politely informed him thinking it would end there. He asked the question again, and I politely responded again. It was the third time and subsequent fourth, fifth etc, that I clued into the idea that this man was lost and most definitely experience senility in some form.

The train arrived and in we went, I was hoping to lose him in the crowd but he ended up sitting right next me. Even with ipod in and metro noise he still proceeded to talk to me and point at this map. I politely smiled and when his station came up I pointed that this was where he needed to get off. Once told he looked at me as if to say ‘well, aren’t you coming with me to show me how?!’.

Anger arose in me when he looked scared and lost in the door of the train, scared about having to do this alone. I felt some guilt, some ‘I should help him’ kindness but the anger kept me weighted in my seat. Another passenger on the train, a nice young man in his early twenties and with that earnest youthful selflessness asked him if he needed help and ultimately escorted him through the station. Train doors shut and the train sped away.

The elderly man looked back at me as the train sped past him even more confused I wasn’t the one helping navigate his trip ahead. I said under my breath, sorry old man, this isn’t my stop. Mine is up ahead. No clue yet about how the journey will go.