Man in the wheelchair wearing dirty shoes

I am very cynical.  I know this.  I own this.  I judge and stereotype and I know it is awful, but I do it.  I do not do it out of meanness, but rather out of creativity.  For example, I saw a man the other day in Publix, in a wheelchair, with dirty shoes.  The man remained fixated on the cereals.  Was it granola or something sugary?  As he reached for the Kelloggs of his choice, he felt eyes on his shoes.  His shoes, dirty and worn-out, were being mentally interrogated by a young blonde woman, obtaining the very same cereal box.

I imagined that just before his journey to the grocery, this man had wheeled into his living room, banging his elbows on the doorframe and losing his patience over the fresh black marks on his wooden floor.  The remote was just out of reach, and sat mocking him from the mantel.  He was going to ring his grandson’s neck the next time he saw him.

Just three weeks before that night, the man was fully functioning physically, and got into the truck like he did every night on his way home.  Tonight was the night he and his grandson sat down and made the grocery list for the rest of the week, and he was trying not to forget about the cereal he had tried earlier from a friend.  He never even felt the cab of the eighteen-wheeler hit him, and he never felt the pain of the ground slamming his body.  As he tried to stand, the mud enthralled him, and his shoes were completely submerged in a lake of motor oil and wet earth.  His legs, he could not feel, but the fear and the shots, he would never forget.

This is why Publix is always a pleasure.