We didn’t really pay him any attention as we went down the escalator and walked past the busker who warbled his sad tune, a man on a wheelchair with bandaged legs. But my friend, a far more charitable lady than I ever was, stopped to drop a blue note into his basket. So perhaps it wasn’t “we” who didn’t pay any attention, but “I.”
Then again, when did I ever pay attention to anything that didn’t directly impact me? That was the problem with my attention, said my old classmate, and that was why I was so bad at basketball. I never looked at anyone else besides the ball and perhaps, the person holding the ball.
Even as she dropped her note, my eyes hardly turned to the busker. I was on my phone once more, stalking, checking, responding to the long list of notifications. I didn’t have to turn on notifications for Instagram, but then, where would be the thrill of getting Likes if I didn’t? When it came to attention, I was more willing to spend it on filtered pictures of people, than actual people in front of me.
I thought no less of it as I walked my friend to the MRT station, since, of course, being the gentleman that I was, I had to see her to the gantry before I turned back. That was always the issue, that what others thought of me was far more important than being genuine and altruistic. So it was that I turned back, and walked past the busker, and headed up the escalator.
And then it hit me.
I recognised the injured busker.
He had once admonished me for not being attentive to my surroundings, for being a bad sports player, for being only focused on what I liked or what was in front of me. I had once admired him, even idolised him, for the mastery of a sport that I had no ball sense for. I spent so much time trying to be more like him, trying to be like my idealised impression of him that is, trying to be like the a person that I would I want to be more like, that I realised I never noticed what happened to him after we graduated.
I selected my friend’s name and dialled her number. Should I go back to my old classmate? What would I say? I had no place to put him up if he was homeless. I had no money to pay for his medical bills should his fractured knees require surgery. And most of all, I had no words to say to someone I had not seen in fifteen years. That was what scared me most of all.
Where would I look if I talked to him? His haggard face? His bandaged legs? The old guitar that he could barely muster up the strength to strum? I remember we arm wrestled once. He beat me. Easily. But now, he was so much smaller and scrawnier, the ravages of time and the winds of fate having taken their toll on him.
I reached the top of the escalator, but my friend didn’t answer. She was probably in a tunnel, unable to receive or hear calls.
So I Tweeted.
“Met a busker who might be an old classmate. What should I do?”
I waited for ten seconds – no reply. Then it hit me. My classmate’s name. I searched for him on Facebook.
He looked normal. He was a doctor. A surgeon. Could you be a surgeon at this age? I had no idea. He seemed well-adjusted – the only sign of him vaguely being a busker was an album of him playing a guitar at a bar. Surely, if he was good enough to play at a bar, he would have made more from his gigs than being a busker?
But perhaps his injury forced him out of such a feasible choice. No. He was a doctor. How could he be forced into being a busker on the road, in rags, on a wheelchair, with hardly a penny (or one cent) to his name? Maybe this was an experiment. A social experiment. Yes. He was known for doing strange things. He once wore a pair of shoes, tied together by laces, on his neck, in lieu of a tie. It was a fashion statement, he had said.
Maybe this was a statement. Maybe after picking up the guitar, he wanted to see who would stop for an insignificant bard. Maybe he wanted to see how much attention he warranted.
I turned back, and went down the escalator. I didn’t know how much time I had spent pacing up and down, staring at my phone as it delivered the clues to my classmate’s fate. Twitter had nary a reply nor a piece of advice for my situation. I didn’t hear any music as I headed down.
There was nobody there. I looked at the floor where he once played – not even the sign of a wheel or dirt.
It was like he was never there.
Or did I just not pay attention?
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