365 Days (Part 2) | ✓

205. Hunger

205. Hunger: Write from the perspective of someone with no money to buy food.

A continuation from Day 201.

She wasn't cold in the least. It was supposed to be a chilly day, or so she had heard people say. But she was bundled in all of the clothes she still owned and she was stuck underground, with the body heat from a hundred mindlessly rushing people pressing around her. Plus, there were other things that occupied her attention: the conversations around her, which she only heard snatches of before the speakers moved too far away; the tingling ache in her feet; and the biting hunger in her stomach.

The last one was the most distracting. She couldn't alleviate it by any means available to her. At least with her feet, she could shift her weight around for a little relief. She could even sit down, but no one could see her if she did, and that's what she was here for: to be seen.

Her hunger was different. She had no money to hope that it would be soothed. Today had been a bad day; or, at least a worst day than yesterday. Yesterday she had garnered enough pity and dollars to buy dinner for herself. Today it didn't look like that would be happening.

She hugged one arm around her stomach, trying to ignore the feeling of hollowness. She slumped against the wall, her legs feeling weak from lack of food and thus a low supply of energy.

It was more than that, though. She felt so defeated. She felt so empty, like her life that once held so much promise was now as bereft as her tummy. The mistakes and bad luck in her life pressed down on her in condemnation. Was this her fault? Was it?

She never knew.

Her eyes dully scanned the people passing by. She wanted to pass judgement on them for being able to walk right in front or her without a single, pitying look. She wanted to... but she couldn't. Because she had once been them, and she knew, with very little of the same bad luck she was victim to, they would also be in her place: without a job or a home or a way to get back up. They might even be without a way to eat.

Her limp eyes roved around the oblivious subway users, when they caught on someone. For a moment she stared at this someone without knowing why. Then a jolt of recognition zapped her limbs and made her straighten. She knew her. They had gone to high school together.

But like all tbe rest, her old acquaintance kept on walking.

She was so hungry...

"Please," she whispered, then immediately regretted it. Why was she calling the attention of someone she knew before she was degraded to this piece of humanity worth nothing to no one? Why must she embarrass herself when she was already so ashamed of her life?

But the woman turned. The two pairs of eyes, which had seen such different things, met and held. She saw the hard face of a selfish woman begin to soften; not in recognition, but in pity.

She hated pity. It was worse than hate. It meant she had reached low enough to be pitied. It meant she was pathetic.

But the woman didn't recognize her. She didn't have the faintest clue that the beggar who stood in front of her had started out at the same place she did, but had from thence departed from her own path.

Somehow that made it easier. It made it easier to be unknown. Her stomach moaned dryly. When was the last time she had eaten? She didn't know. A few times she had swayed on her feet, or maybe she had just gotten dizzy. Either way, it was exquisite agony to be so near a world of riches and splendor and yet to be removed from it.

Did she deserve it?