undo me.
Every time.

I don’t mean some random hot person that conjures feelings of doing it because they look at you just so.
I mean…

Two images keep rising through my swirling, sedated thoughts:

1) a collapsed woman and her husband, helpless before her barely conscious and very drunken body.

Most keep walking, some slow their pace, still others stare or shake their heads, even.
No one stops.
Time passes.

But.
Someone does stop.
The best kind of full-brake stop that starts by demanding of the subway attendant, “what the fuck with the help that was supposedly called?”
Followed by waiting with the woman while husband goes to buy water and kleenex as she’s a snotted mess, but if anyone can be a delicate and endearing pukey mess, it’s this woman.  Finally she is coax-forced to a standing position and pull-carried up steps to street level.  (By the way, taxis can take forever to catch if you need them to pull a u-turn because that’s against the rules and lord knows Tokyoites stay cozied up to a damned rule.)  Hooray for a rogue driver!  As the beautiful stranger negotiates with the driver, the husband marvels at this incredible show of kindness; there are no kinder people in the world, he tells his pouty and apologetic wife.

2) a broken-hearted man on a train; there’s no containing the tears and snot strings that such hurt brings.

Most don’t notice his grief; he’s not a loud crier.  But every stop after the one where she bolted cements the three, five, seven minutes that will turn to hours— agonizing hours— of a sinking in…ex-girlfriend.  And with each stop, he gets more frantic; he’s beyond giving a shit about hiding his tears because he’s hit a high wall of pain.  People next to him start to look away, shift their bodies away from his sad direction.  Except the girl standing directly in front of him; she studies him, his hands dripping tears and salt-mucused sleeves.  She looks thoughtful as she turns to exit but not before tossing a mini-pack of kleenex in his lap.

Four days, three nights and counting.
Weird sleep patterns, damn strong meds and forced quiet time makes for interesting processing.

Who knew I cared so much about random acts of kindness?

It’s what floats to the surface and cuts through my sleepy, painful coughing fits of late.

As our experiences are our constant, a thread of kindness is a nice binding agent.