mediocre_samaritan
epitome of incomprehensibility Well. This has been a weird_day, to put it mildly.

Morning. 8:15 AM. In my journal, I write about the book Gulp by Mary Roach. I'm making a growing list of books I haven't finished and want to. This leads me to bemoan my time management, which takes time. My three alarms have already rung.

I'm late leaving for my passport appointment, so Dad drops me off.

I'm just on time. Or rather, early. Thirty-five days early. Somehow I've booked for 10 AM on May 19, not April 14.

Well. The Service Canada place is near the mall with the bus terminal, so I've no problem getting transported. But on the way, I get absorbed in the syllables part of my phonetics book and miss my stop.

During my 20-minute walk home, I ponder the profound things in life, like why my abdomen feels heavy. Do I have to poop? And why? I did just a couple of hours ago.

But it's not that: small blood smears on my underwear prompt me to scold my period for poor time management. Being early can be a problem, we've seen.

And then it's up to my room for absorbers of quasi-periodic periods and for new underpants, which makes me decide to change shirts too. Then it's back to the bathroom, washing out the stain, washing hands, saying yes, I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying.

...

And I am. I have to leave for the Economics Experiment that starts at 1 PM sharp and for which I can get at least $15. I was late on Tuesday and had to rebook for a different day.

I catch the elusive 204 bus that speeds me to the downtown-bound 425. Yes! I'll be early, in a good way!

On the 425, a woman asks a man who's just coughed: "You have COVID?" Abrupt, maybe joking. Is she drunk? Because now she's grumbling about something, looking my way. I say I don't understand. I'm marking Reading Group things on my laptop, my expression Do Not Disturb.

Lining near the door to exit, she's two people ahead of me - walking slowly, with a pained expression. A beer bottle rolls on the seat beside her, but it could have been already there.

"What's wrong?" I ask when we're out.

She mumbles something about having a baby and other people not believing she's THAT pregnant. She looks like she could be about four or five months along. But the think about people "not believing" raises suspicions for me, because in November another woman used some emotional manipulation on me to get cash. And it worked, which I resented her and myself for. Now this other person is the undeserving recipient of that grudge. "I don't know you," I say a little grumpily. "I don't know if you're pregnant or not."

And she says the baby is coming, the baby is coming, can I help her to the metro? People are walking past us in both directions. She does seem in pain and I offer her my arm. It's okay. Let's get to the metro station. The ticket person can call the medical person.

Moaning, mumbled distress.

You can sit down inside.

But I forget that the window ledges are uncomfortable to sit on. We go down the escalator, towards the ticket stand. I have no idea what I'm doing.

As we approach the floor with its distinctive round tiles in the colours of fall leaves, she says she doesn't want me telling anyone. She just wants to go home.

"Okay. Where do you live?"

"Atwater."

"I'm going that way too. But I have to get off at Peel."

And the train is coming. I help her down the stairs. On time. I can help people and still be on time.

"I have to get off in two stops," I tell her again, before our vehicle gets going with a roar and zoom. "Are you okay to get home?"

But she doesn't get off at Atwater. We're heading to Guy-Concordia and I don't understand what her face is saying. She's cradling her abdomen, squinting. I stay close. She moans and holds one arm out. I meet her hand with my gloved one and she squeezes. Not unbearably hard, but it reminds me of the Call a Midwife show that my mom watches and that's when I'm convinced.

But when she groans out at me to get a nurse - as if nurses are to be gotten by raising one's voice in a subway car - what I say to the people within hearing distance is "This woman, she claims she's in labour." Claims! When even in my head I'd been planning the neutral "says." "She says she's having a baby. I have to get off at the next stop."

The two I'm addressing look up. Others do too. I repeat part of what I said before, adding, "Can you take care of things, get her medical help?" and wait until the young woman I lock eyes with nods. The guy in the other seat is aware, at least. Other people farther away have heard. I exit the train.

Outside, I don't know whether to regret leaving her or not. I feel like crying or finishing the tuna sandwich I had to stuff back into its bag when the bus-before-the-downtown-bus rounded the corner. I eat the tuna sandwich.

What was the use of providing a hand to hold and then just leaving, though?What's if this person has a miscarriage that could have been avoided if she'd gotten to the hospital sooner? Should I have just called 911 right away? But I have to respect people's wishes. Maybe she's afraid doctors will judge her for drinking. Or for being Inuit (is she Inuit?) That they'll link the two.

I could have stayed. My appointment isn't even important.

But other people would know better.

But the ones I talked to looked like CEGEP kids. Like 17-18.

But teenagers can be active and activist and stuff.

Or ignorant. Or apathetic. They didn't look willing to move seats.

How would I know? I left, didn't I?

...

Fifteen minutes early. The experiment is about whether people will choose a household energy plan that saves electricity. The benefits? Environmental mostly, but there'll be a small financial bonus for them and the people who live in their sort of co-op electricity pool. Except there are also greater expenses, so for people living in some kinds of dwellings - including the "detached house" I've randomly been assigned to - it will be more expensive to choose the eco-friendly option.

We'll get real-life money from this, a fraction of the imaginary money. Plus, to provide a real-life equivalent to the imaginary electricity savings, the experimenters will buy carbon offsets from a site called Planet Air.

So for each scenario I invariably choose the more eco-friendly option. Right away. Other people - we are separated by screens, like the desks at old Cedar_Christian_Academy - seem to be deliberating, rustling papers, calculating. I wait for minutes at a time, bored or worrying.

...

Worrying? Not just about the stranger. Before the experiment started, when I was checking my phone, I saw a message from one of the tutoring centre's bosses: the admin assistant is sick, probably COVID, so the potluck lunch is canceled.

(Yes, I ate a sandwich even though there was going to be a potluck lunch. Waiting for food isn't my forte.)

Would I catch it? Probably not. I wasn't around him much when I was there yesterday. But N. might be worried about herself.

...

In the TA room, Logan has redone his blackboard "Live, Laugh, Love" in fancier cursive. An among-us "Among Us" in-joke is underneath. The word "sus" - short for "suspicious," it's apparently a phrase in the game - has been transliterated into several ancient scripts, including Sanskrit Devanagari सुस् (that'd actually be pronounced "soos", but okay).

He's graduating, Valerie's graduating, everyone seems to be graduating except me.

Another graduating one, my current TA for Indo-European (a TA of a TA: tata? तत?), is radiating stress. She's one of the ones who's doing an interdisciplinary-but-actually-linguistics Master's. News! She's been accepted to PhD programs in both Cornell and Harvard, but which to pick? She has to answer Cornell today.

"Wow! Congratulations."

Nods, her light blue eyes expressive.

"But that must be hard, having to pick."

Nods again. She tells me thanks, yeah, like it feels good to have both parts of that acknowledged.

I'm stating the obvious, but she seems to geniunely feel supported. (Oh yes, minimal-effort support for an acquaintance who's done favours for you in the past - such virtue.)

Logan keeps it surreal, devising a coin-toss, then a pick-which-coin-is-under-the-bucket. Both times it turns up Harvard.

...

"Weird day," I tell the prof I'm the TA for, but I just mention the passport thing.

When we're sorting the papers in her office (marking-related stuff), my boss calls. H. doesn't have COVID! Negative test. So probably a flu. She's at the office, so I can do my online tutoring class in one of the empty mini-classrooms, instead of doing it, masked, from Concordia.

...

With the boss's permission, I mooch her extra Chinese stir-fry, scarfing up skinny noodles and tasty mushrooms.

...

"Happy Easter, if you celebrate that," I say to the woman in the square on the screen. At her smile, I imagine she's thinking "Ah, a fellow Christian." (Christian-adjacent.)

Which leads (finally!) into me telling the metro story to my parents at the supper table. "I was a mediocre Samaritan," I say, which Mom finds hilarious.

But but but but. What's if, in the parable, it had been the Samaritan, the outgroup member, in need of help?
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tender_square when michael and i were walking down catherine street to pick up our takeout from detroit street filling station, we passed a couple of middle-aged women seated at the window. there was a blimeys bag with the tell-tale union jack on their tabletop, and i pointed and exclaimed, stunned by the coincidence. michael and i had gone to the british gift shop for the first time the previous weekend; it was located in the heart of downtown essex, twenty minutes outside of my hometown. at the take-out entrance, the restaurant was playing rush’s “fly by nightand i suddenly longed for canada, didn’t want to leave on a train 2,240 km away the following day.

we looped around to zingerman’s next door hoping for orange scones but left empty handed. traveling south on north 5th avenue back to the car, i saw a pair of crossed legs seated along a stone-retaining wall, the upper torso obscured by sedge. it looked like magician’s sawn-in-half trick gone wrong. the legs belonged to a red-headed bearded man wearing jeans, a stoner poncho with the hood pulled up, and velcro sandals over socks. he was taking a siesta between the towering blades, cherubic and still.

we passed him but i couldn’t look away.

two women approaching us from the opposite direction also stared briefly and passed the passed-out man.

cars idling at the stop light on the one-way looked over their shoulders and returned to view outside their windshields.

i don’t feel right about leaving that guy,” i said when we reached the corner. “do you think i can call the non-emergent line?”

let’s go check on him.”

the man hadn’t stirred from his place. his right ankle rested over his left knee in a position that seemed too unlikely to sustain lying down.

“sir?” i called. “sir, are you alright?” i didn’t want to touch him; i didn’t want to startle him.

he looks like he’s breathing,” michael said. but i couldn’t tell if my eyes were playing tricks on me: the man’s breath was shallower than a wading pool.

i stepped away, studied the surroundings. the stone beneath him was damp, a discolouration that trickled down to the sidewalk beneath where he sat. i couldn’t tell if his pants were wet, the denim was already dark.

i don’t think he’s alright; i think he may have soiled himself.” i called the police and reported what i knew. i felt awkward, like at any moment the man would shoot up from unconsciousness, angry that the cops were getting involved if he was high, angry that i assumed he hadn't held his bladder.

someone will be by to check it out,” the voice on the other end said. i was surprised that the department hadn’t heard from anyone else regarding this scene.

after i hung up the call, michael began heading for the car. my pace dragged. “shouldn’t we wait for someone to arrive?” i didn’t feel right leaving the man.

someone will be by soon enough.” it was true; the cop shop was a block away. cruisers were parked a stone’s throw from where we stood.

as we reached east huron a block later, i turned over my shoulder. an officer was standing over the man; he still hadn’t sat up, but he was stretching his legs out, the way one does before rising.
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e_o_i (I love your descriptions. Plus this reminds me strongly of something that happened to me in November, Remembrance_Day to be exact, but I wrote about it in my journal and not here.) 220503
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tender_square (this felt like the perfect title for the scenario, so thank you for creating it, and writing about how awkward it can be to try and help people, and how we can second-guess our best intentions, e_o_i. kerry achieved this tightrope walk as well on "noticing" and without your two narratives i'm not sure i would have ever been inspired to write this one.) 220504
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