On the train, yesterday around 10 in the morning, from Kifisia to Monastiraki. By the time we reached Heraklion, our carriage was packed.
“Who are we?” each one wondered within themselves. What do we do for a living? Where are we going at this hour? Why is our gaze so empty?
At the next station, the first beggar entered.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I ask for your attention. I have a sick child at Laiko Hospital. Here’s a certificate from the doctors…”
His voice faded into indifference but also into the certainty that all of us believed that he was lying. He got off with empty hands.
The next misfortune took a feminine form. The performance was more dramatic, the role equally tragic. Another sick child.
But “five more at home, who have nothing to eat,” she said. She apologized to us “for the inconvenience during the crisis, but I beg for your help to save my child.” Again, we looked away. And our entire being weighed even heavier…
Until, at Agios Nikolaos, blessed be his grace, Dani entered our carriage, a blond boy, no more than 20.
“From Norway, ladies and gentlemen,” he introduced himself to us in English and wished us a good day.
Then, he started juggling colourful balls in the air, as high as the ceiling of the carriage allowed, to the sounds of cheerful music by Leroy Anderson. He caught as many as he could and tossed them again.
Half of them fell.
His fellow passengers rushed to pick them up. In the end, we all gifted him with a wide smile (which he probably gifted us first) and filled his hat with whatever change we found. He bid us farewell with a “thank you” and a graceful bow.
I thought he would go back to his country and tell his friends back home that amidst their deep crisis, the Greeks gave a young lad from wealthy Norway a few coins and a big piece of their souls.
He was the worst juggler I’ve ever seen in my life.
But the best therapist who ever entered an electric train carriage. He took a part of people’s burden and made them, even for a station or two, lighter.
The others, the “actors of misery,” showed us a face, perhaps our own, that we no longer like.
We prefer the truth of innocent error, rather than the lie of guilty correctness! No more fake certificates…
With all that, the Norwegian juggler distracted us for a while from our mobile phones.
Ah, those social media! As much as they are a revolution in our lives, like all revolutions, they suffer in the details.
Facebook, for example, has a feature that reminds you that today is someone’s birthday. Kindness. Especially for forgetful people like myself.
Yesterday, for example, it reminded me not to forget to wish my friend Tito in Cyprus a “Happy birthday”… Who passed away about ten days ago!
And then there’s the other thing, again on Facebook.
Some “catchy” little issues, which if you don’t realize they are “sponsored posts,” as they are politely called, you might mistake them for “breaking news.” For instance, it’s days when it’s displayed on the FB showcase, with a small subtitle Sponsored, the… news that “finally, yes, Kate Middleton,” the princess of Prince Edward, “has something very serious.” If you click on the “news,” you click!…
P.S. I repeat. The internet is a treasure. For me, one of humanity’s greatest discoveries. Technology, which is so demonized by many, is not responsible for the lack of education that still exists in our society. That’s where we should focus our efforts…
