Typical, silver spoon American.

[starlightsymph]

I was in the mood to stroll, so I meandered over to the local gas station. It was a fine summer evening, perfect weather in a perfect society in a perfect town in a perfect country. The sky a beautiful pinkish orange cast from a setting sun. As I pushed open the glass door of the station, a bell tinkled to announce my presence in the place. Moving out of the doorway, I picked up a newspaper on a slick green metal rack near the magazine stand. The title of the paper was about some trouble far away in Egypt; something about Avian something or other. Chuckling to myself over how a country could lose countrol of something so simple as that, I let the paper fall back with a soft flump. Then, so as to be worldly and become more omnipotent then I already was from my grand and completely unbiased schooling, I once more picked up the paper and made for the counter. Upon approaching the counter, however, I was dismayed to find the man behind the counter watching me. It wasn't his attentions that was bothersome; that would usually have flattered me. Not, it was the expression in his eyes as he peered. They looked troubled, as though something was wrong with him, possibly mentally.He was raggedy, in the way that his shirt was stained from coffee and sweat, his pants torn, wrikled, and splashed with heaven knows what. His hair was unkempt, as though he had never known what a comb was, or a brush. His eyes glazed over, his teeth overly browned, and an unshaved face, he looked as though he was a train wreck on high pursuit of a bridge to fall off of. Upset that he had disturbed my eveing, I strutted up to the counter and said, by way of greeting, "What's the matter? Not to be rude, but you look quite out of it. Is there anything that I could (heaven forbid I actually had to) help you with?" Growing ever the more droopy and dismal, he told me what I took to be a shortened version of his life story. It seems that he had lost his family when he was a young boy, and that he had recently found his sister again; she was working as a prostitute in Detroit. His wife had died six months ago from cancer of the ovaries, and just soon afterwards his two children had died as well. After that, he had lost his home, too depressed and grief ridden to attend to his middle wage job as a mason, which he also lost. Now he was living at a YMCA, barely able to support himself at all, taking this job as a cashier to distract him from his troubles. Tiring of his talk, I looked down at the formica grey counter, and quickly took my hands off it; it looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in days. Disgusted with the ignorant man, I cut across his talk to say that I had someplace to be and would he PLEASE ring up the amount for the paper. Water welling in the corners of his grey-blue eyes (I hoped that he did not have alergies) he quietly asked for a dollar. Throwing a dollar on the counter next to his waiting, outstretched hand, I turned abruptly and stalked out the door, resolving never to come to THAT gas station again until he was fired. How could anyone believe this man? How could all this misfortune happen to anyone who was born in the U.S.? I simply could not accept that, so I came to the conclusion that he was an immigrant. Nodding to myself, I hurried home and washed my hands, in case the poor man had had something contagious.

A few days later, I turned on the t.v. to watch a bit of news before I went off to school. It showed the gas station I had been in. And it showed the man I had scoffed at, shot in the head, a midnight black gun in his hand, glistening with backsplashed blood. They said he committed suicide. I just turned off the t.v., and hoped the next person who worked there was a decent, well kept U.S. born citizen who would not spoil my good summer evenings. A few months later I was moved to South Africa.