An Ordinary Person

I read this once in a Chinese-language essay compilation. Its power to convict remains strong in my memory to this day. Though I've forgotten the original text, here is a rough approximation of the story.

It was a brutally cold winter. Five people were on a small bus heading through the town. There was a businessman on his way home from work; a mother and child on their way to the tuition center; a man in a large leather coat, sucking on a cigar; and a small old lady, shivering against the cold, her bare feet white with frostbite.

The young boy cried out first. "Mummy, look! That old lady doesn't have shoes!"

The mother glared at him and gave him a smack to the side of his head. She looked at the old woman as well. "The state of senior citizen welfare in our country has gone to the dogs. Look at her, without even a decent pair of shoes."

From the back of the bus, the man smoked on his cigarette, oblivious to the other passengers. The businessman glanced around, then got up angrily. "None of you will even lift a finger to help that old woman! Shame on you!" He walked up to the small elderly lady, and handed her one hundred dollars. "Here, buy some shoes for yourself." She thanked him, but her smile was forced, and the creases around her eyes never relaxed. He sat down again, content that 'he did something.'

A young teenager got on at the next stop. As soon as he got on the bus, he saw the old woman and began staring at her feet--little but skin and bone, white from lack of blood, with a few toes missing from previous run-ins with the relentless weather. The bus was silent. The businessman and the younger woman glared at him, shocked at his rudeness.

Then the young man lifted his feet up, exposing the brand-new pair of sneakers, and pulled them off his feet, socks and all. "Here, ma'am," he spoke respectfully. "Take these. It's really cold out here." The old woman looked at him, tears swimming in her eyes, and put the socks and shoes on with the utmost gratitude.

At the next stop, the teenager jumped off, hopping across the pavement in his bare feet to stem the cold, his feet white but his face beaming red with joy. The other passengers stared through the window at this unexpected interloper.

"He must be an angel from God." The mother whispered in awe.

"He must be a prophet," remarked the businessman.

But the young boy, being young, simply spoke at the top of his voice. "No mummy, mummy, you are both wrong. I saw the whole thing. He was an ordinary person. Just an ordinary person like us."