Nicholson St 5pm
Oct. 24th, 2003 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccThe bloke was in the middle of the tram tracks, right in the centre of Nicholson St.
He was pushing a supermarket trolley, filled with various whitegoods and other miscellaneous items.
He looked pretty normal - for Fitzroy - and I thought he'd just misjudged the traffic, and managed to get himself stranded in the middle of the road.
(Supermarket trolleys being difficult to control at the best of times, and more so when loaded.)
So I stopped to let him get off the road - gesturing through the windscreen for him to cross.
He looked at me. Lost.
"I'm sorry" he said. And put his head down on the pile and wept.
"Where do you need to go mate? Fitzroy or Brunswick? Left or right?"
No response. Just a huddled man in the centre of the road, with a stream of traffic to either side.
The traffic in the other lane started moving past again, leaving me trapped and waiting for a break so I could go around him.
What do you do? It's a clearway, there's no stopping. Who do you call for the man stuck with the trolley in the middle of the road? Police? Ambulance?
In the end I went around him, like everyone else, unsure what to do or who to call and running late for an appointment further north.
But I wish I'd done more than ask where he wanted to go.
He was pushing a supermarket trolley, filled with various whitegoods and other miscellaneous items.
He looked pretty normal - for Fitzroy - and I thought he'd just misjudged the traffic, and managed to get himself stranded in the middle of the road.
(Supermarket trolleys being difficult to control at the best of times, and more so when loaded.)
So I stopped to let him get off the road - gesturing through the windscreen for him to cross.
He looked at me. Lost.
"I'm sorry" he said. And put his head down on the pile and wept.
"Where do you need to go mate? Fitzroy or Brunswick? Left or right?"
No response. Just a huddled man in the centre of the road, with a stream of traffic to either side.
The traffic in the other lane started moving past again, leaving me trapped and waiting for a break so I could go around him.
What do you do? It's a clearway, there's no stopping. Who do you call for the man stuck with the trolley in the middle of the road? Police? Ambulance?
In the end I went around him, like everyone else, unsure what to do or who to call and running late for an appointment further north.
But I wish I'd done more than ask where he wanted to go.
