The train swayed lethargically from side to side.
The mother and child made their way
through the disdainful tumult of commuters.
As I stand in the doorway, a mere observer,
they stop inches from my elbow.
Sinhala is their language of plea.
Though I don't understand their words,
the scene has become familiar.
Standing at the periphery,
looking upon an unseeing, deaf audience,
as the mother describes a life, a fate
that in so many ways is too cruel for words -
the essence, the agony and suffering encased
in words as unfeeling as the audience.
Where to go, what to do, we have no hope,
we have no food, we need your help.
Please help.
As this goes on I realize the child is looking at me.
Her face is obstructed.
I can only see her right eye, the jet-black hair
dancing across her forehead.
She looks intently, without expectation or condemnation,
just curiosity.
As I look on, all I see and know of the mother and child is now -
a sad lament, a cry for help, a beleaguered mother,
a child that doesn't know anything different from this.
The child's face blocked from view,
only a small part of the whole seen.
All the circumstances, the injustice,
the failures, the abuses, the hunger
cannot be grasped in this brief appeal.
It remains hidden, incomprehensible, or, worse,
too commonplace to warrant a response.
And so the mother desperately strains to express,
make evident and real
the scope of their struggle.
But it remains obscure, abstract.
Only a few make the attempt to scrounge for the loose change.
So where will this mother and child go,
what will they do, how will they eat.
Given the response, it doesn't seem to matter.
So long as their plight, their lives, the depth of their suffering
remain concealed, out of sight,
we can carry on with our lives with little more than
the imposition of distant, reverberating echoes of another's pain.
The trudging train of our lives
unhindered by these passengers without a ticket.