Feeling So Sick Walking Was Impossible As a Stranger Practically Supported Me to the Toilets.
During my my late teens, my regular journey to work was on an crowded coach. The vehicle was always full and was consistently standing room only by the time I got on.
During a certain commute, I started experiencing incredibly sick as the bus rocked around each corner. I kept telling myself to hold on another few kilometres until the bus got to my stop, at which point I could make a mad dash to the closest public toilet to vomit.
We were coming down the road leading to the stop when I understood I was unable to hold on. Suddenly, it felt as if a veil came over me. Everything just went blank and silent; similar to when one cut the sound. I thought, “I’m going to faint”.
Fortunately, I stood close to the driver inside the vehicle, so I managed a couple of steps to ask the driver and asked the driver to stop, informing him I needed to vomit. The driver opened the doors and I stumbled out out onto the street.
I was determined not to vomit in front of a busy multi-lane road, so I picked myself up and started trying to walk to the park on the other side, where I believed it would allow me to find some privacy behind a bush to throw up. Yet I apparently lost consciousness. I could feel my physical self, yet I couldn’t walk or see clearly, so I started inching my way to my intended destination.
“You right, love?”
Right then, I got scooped up. There was someone holding me and heard a man say, “Are you okay, dear?” I told this kind passerby that I had to to vomit. So he virtually helped me walk over to a nearby building and placed me inside the women’s restroom. He wanted to know whether I required him to remain with me but I refused.
A few minutes later, I felt better enough to sit down and from outside the door I heard his voice asking, “Are you feeling better, dear? Can I get you something?” I was incapable to rise at that moment but I was able to express my gratitude and after a few more minutes recovered the use of my legs. I made my way home and then spent the next few days healing from what turned out to be a horrible case of gastroenteritis.
I did not see his features – only his legs and a large steelwork tools container he was carrying – but he saved me, when I was in my weakest state.
Many times, life can make you self-protective, pushy, and rivalrous. His was the sort of gesture that undoes that protective shell. He was proof that our default setting is towards kindness, a quality I adore in other people.
