I’m standing on the street with a stranger I helped. I think briefly about my appointment, but then I mentally let it go. It’s too late.
I’m way too late. I’m annoyed that I’m late even though I got up early. How did I lose track of time? As I rush to my appointment, I see a woman sitting on the ground in the distance. It looks strange how she’s squatting there in the middle of the sidewalk. Is she begging?
Something about her makes me feel a little angry. I sense from afar a frequency that tells me I have to behave towards her. That she will be an obstacle on my path, where I have to block out everything in order to somehow arrive on time. But then I am at her level. And then it doesn’t matter. Everything stops. I sense that she needs help:
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. A woman who also wanted to go to work. “I fell,” she says slowly. “Do I have something on my face?” she asks.
“A little blood on the chin.”
“Is it bad?” she asks, shocked. She seems to be particularly interested in whether there is any damage to her face.
“No, no,” I say, trying to sound reassuring.
“I can’t get up anymore,” she says.
“Should I help you?” She nods. Then I reach under her arms from behind, I feel sweat under her armpits. Sweat from fear, I think, then I hold her up. When she stands, she staggers. I support her. “Should I call an ambulance?” I ask.
“No, no,” she says quickly. Her water bottle is on the ground. I pick it up. She takes a few sips, still swaying. I worry and consider calling an ambulance against her will.
She keeps falling over
“I keep falling over lately,” she then says.
“Did you go to the doctor about this?” I ask.
“Yes, he said it was just stress. But yesterday it happened to me too. Just like that, out of nowhere. It’s not stress. I’m losing my balance.”
“Maybe you should go see another doctor?”
“Yeah, I thought so too.”
I suddenly feel something heavy inside me, the worry that there might be something serious behind her fall.
“It’s okay,” she says. She takes a step, but it doesn’t work. The woman staggers. “Wait a moment,” I say.
I’m standing with her on the street. I think briefly about my appointment, which I then let go of internally. It’s too late. But what are minutes and hours compared to decisive moments?
“I want to go home,” she says. “Should I accompany you?” I ask.
The woman hesitates. She maintains a polite distance. Even in this situation. Or perhaps precisely because of this needy situation. She seems like a person who can do a lot on her own or has perhaps gotten used to it.
Then she nods: “I live very close.”
With uncertain steps into the apartment
We walk slowly a few steps. When we reach her apartment building, she opens the heavy front door, modern, well-secured. We walk together to her apartment door: “Can you really make it?”
She nods.
But then I’m at her level. And then it doesn’t matter. Everything stops
She walks into her apartment with uncertain steps, opening the door just a crack, as if she wanted to prevent me from going in with her, from walking further into her life with her.
But then she looks at me.
“What is your name?” she asks, as if she wanted to sort out the incident for herself.
I say my first name. She nods and smiles.
Then she closes the door.
I leave the strange house, but I’m no longer in a hurry. When I get to my appointment, miraculously the others I had arranged to meet are also late. It’s as if a gap had formed in time in which I was supposed to pick up the woman.
