A Hunger

This summer, I got out of my car and started walking toward a group of shops, when an older woman approached me. She very hesitantly asked me for money, looking at the ground, her hands fluttering by her sides. Her denim jacket was huge, jeans, baggy on her spindly legs, were tied with a worn and broken belt. I felt for her, whatever had brought her to this condition. She had only two or three teeth left in her mouth and her lips looked dry and cracked.

She said that she was hungry, and would I be so kind as to give her some money. "You don't look like someone who is going to yell at me because of how I look," she said.

That made me kind of mad. Who could yell at someone so obviously wrestling with demons I hoped to never know? So, I gave her a dollar and continued on to the hardware store and chinese take-out place.

When I walked down the sidewalk a short time later I saw her walking toward me, her head down in concentration, scratching off a lottery ticket from the liquor store. I wasn't mad about the money - she was honest about how she felt - she just didn't tell me what kind of hunger it was.