Courage Needed
to Do a Good Deed
by David Yamrus
It was high
time she should go to work. So she put on her
skirt in a hurry and left home. To save time, she
didn’t dress herself in a very orderly
fashion. As a result, one of the skirt slips
stayed inside.
How awkward it
was! But she had no idea! Even though several
passers-by fixed their eyes on her, she paid no
attention to them, for she knew that they would
do it only because her beauty worked. And she was
used to it.
“Excuse
me, madam. Mind your back…” a young man
suddenly tried to call her attention from behind.
She looked back, but there was nothing left on
the ground. She glanced at him and went on moving
forward.
“I say,
mind your back,” said that young man again.
She turned her head back again. Still, there was
nothing on the ground.
“How
disgusting!” she replied to the young man,
who tried to explain. “Look at the back part
of…”
Suddenly, she
found there was something wrong with her skirt.
She made a quick re-arrangement, with her face
rather red. Then she ran towards her office at a
stride. When she sat down by her desk, she
thought of what had happened to her and got angry
with the young man. He had been walking behind
her all the way and he must have seen…
However, if he hadn’t reminded her of the
problem, many more people would have seen it.
Moreover, the young didn’t mean to hurt her;
she could see that from his eyes.
Her thoughts
on the matter became quite clear.
One evening
from work, on the bus she saw a middle-aged man,
with his trouser zip open. This was known by
almost everyone but none of them would tell him
about it.
She hesitated
for a moment, unable to make up her mind. Just
then, she remembered the young man’s smile
and, slowly, she pushed her way through the crowd
towards the man, and tried to tell him about it.
“Excuse
me, but could you please mind your zip?” she
didn’t mention the word “trouser”
in order to not alert the other passengers to
what she was doing.
“What?”
the man asked loudly.
“You
didn’t do up your zip.”
“Oh,”
he looked down, “something has been wrong
with it for a couple of days. There has been no
time to get it repaired, but, does it matter much
to you?” he asked as if he thought the young
lady was mean. Someone began to laugh.
“I only
wanted to remind you to be careful with your
appearance. Nothing else.” She looked him in
the eye.
The man was
silent.
At that very
time she thought of the young man, and became
more grateful to him for his great deed. Only
then did she realize that sometimes it takes
great courage to help someone without any self-motivation.
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