BaseBlog

by William Arthur Ward

A lot of years ago, my sister and I sat in a train, looking at life on the platform, while we were waiting for the train to start moving. We saw an alarmingly fat person with a broom, cleaning up after us passengers.

Not thinking twice, I said to my sister – probably a little too loud – ‘It looks like that man has swallowed a TV’. With us being inside the train, and him walking outside, he shouldn’t be able to hear that. But yet he turned round looking straight at me, with a very sad expression. I don’t know if he heard me, or just happened to turn around and see a very stupid kid (me) sitting there looking at him.
Normally I do not make fun of other people. Partly because I don’t like to hurt other people, but mostly because I tend to be a bit longsighted when it comes to people: I don’t focus so much on the exterior; maybe because I’m no model myself. I think that’s the reason why I still remember this so vividly.

I really hope you’ll act more intelligent than I did, and treat other people with decency, even if they have flaws and you don’t.