Daily Grind #4: Hello

“Hello.” You weren’t crying. You weren’t. Maybe you were sniffling a little bit, but no one around here should notice that. You’re in a train station so early on a weekday morning, rush hour, it looked like. People in these parts were polite, even to strange foreigners like you. But it was rush hour, the whole lot of them were milling, streaming in different directions, with no reason to pay attention to you, the lost, starving, little thing burdened by luggage and standing all alone in a corner. “Hello?” You heard it this time. It came from much closer. You turned your head and saw his eyes first. Small but wide, then he backed up and you saw his face, high cheekbones, sharp nose, lips parted with the questioning end of that hello. “Are you okay?” he asked. Somebody who spoke English, thank dear lord in heaven. Your heart pounded against your ribcage in joy. Saved! But then it was yanked back by something stronger, tougher. The same force that had kept you standing there for half an hour now. You made it across oceans, didn’t you? You got on that plane and you got off, no incidents. You made […]