Shon Mehta

It was a small thing, hardly worth remembering, the sort of moment most people wouldn’t notice at all. And yet it stayed with me, as small moments sometimes do. While standing in a queue, I observed a man in front of me who had stepped too close to a lady. Too close to that invisible boundary each of us guards without even knowing we guard it. The lady said softly, “Would you move back, please?” Nothing harsh. Just a request. The man’s family was standing nearby. Their faces changed at once. Not anger, but something wounded. Pride, perhaps. As if her words had touched a nerve they did not know was exposed. By defending her own space, she had trespassed into theirs. Some time passed. Then their boy, eight years old or so, rode a luggage trolley straight at the complaining lady’s leg, fast and reckless. There was childish mischief in it, but also something deliberate. The lady jumped aside just in time. When I turned, I caught the boy looking at his mother. She was giggling. That giggle…...