Unrelenting Mercy

Unrelenting Mercy Pt. I

Look at me. A pathetic excuse of a man lying crippled in the wet streets of london. The rain falls and stabs at me accusingly as if it knows my sins. The cold only serves to somewhat numb the pain in my legs which intensifies with every beat my heart takes. My body hates me. It regrets ever being a part of me...I don't blame it. I look up to see across the street a family of four hurriedly entering a shop to escape the rain. A beautiful little girl and boy with cheerful expressions on their faces as they play in the rain and the parents scolding them to get inside. I had a chance at that, but I ruined it.

Soon after a while the pangs of hunger came to ridicule me. They tell me I am a worm, that the consequences of my actions have caught up to me and they shame me with every second that I lay on the ground useless and unable to do anything for myself. The moon shines on me like a spotlight telling the world," Here's a failiure! Here's a man who wasted his life and has the same worth as the dirt he sits upon! Ridicule him for his actions and atrocities and shame him for his plight. Who will cry for him at his funeral? Who will pity him at his hour of death?" The only way I can repay this world is if I die and lay forgotten even to the obituaries.

As I tried to go asleep in order shorten the hours of misery, a rather tall man stood in front of me extending his trench coat and blocking the moon and rain from me.

"Are you alright sir?" the figure asked with an unfittingly kind voice. "Do you need medical attention? Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Can you get up?" he said.

"No," I replied,"No, No, No, No, and No. Does that answer your questions. Leave me. Show me mercy and leave me here to die without any spectators."

"What kind of mercy is that? Death without even a burial? No, you are worth far more than that surely. What troubles you brother and makes you so bitter?"

"I said go away and leave me alone. Do I need to write it to you? Are you awaiting an invitation from the queen? Just leave, scat!"

With an unamused face the man sat down there with me and looked me in the eyes and said,"I'm not going anywhere knowing in my conscious I left a man to die in the street alone."

"This is a trick right? At any second your friends will come out of the corner and you all will laugh at me and mock me. You'll spit on me and make of me a fool, stripping away any dignity that I might still have. I'll be the idiot in the story you will tell your children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, about the pitiful little man that you just happened to meet on the way home and gave him a glimmer of hope before you filled him with indignation at the fact that he was worthless. Your family will have a good laugh and I'll be the laughing stock. Leave, I won't give you such satisfaction!"

"If I wanted to humiliate you and make you look like an idiot I would let you keep on talking. Come, get up."

As he tried to pull me up I screamed in pain as soon as my legs moved as if blunt, hot, irons were impaled into my knees and ankles. "Put me down you idiot if I could stand up I would have done so to chase you away! My legs have been broken and I can't do anything."

"I see," said the man, "and I have an idea as to what to do. Here, a friend of mine gave me potent painkillers if I were ever to encounter a situation like this. They should last enough to get you to a nearby hospital."

"And if I don't want them?" I said," If I just want to stay here to die and end it here? What part of leave me alone do you not understand?'

"Don't be like that," said the man.

"'Don't be like that?' You don't know what has happened to me nor the things I have done. Don't tell me 'Don't be like that' I have every right to be like this and I will keep being like this so stop doing what you're doing and leave!"

"I don't care about the things you have done. I don't care if you are Genghis Kahn, Napoleon Bonaparte, or Hitler reincarnated and rolled into one. What I do care about however is that you are hurt and I have the tools to help you. I also care about you and your life. I care about your well-being and your state of happiness. I care about you being the best man you can be and I don't even know your name. You are worth more than you think you are. You are not just a cripple. You are the son of thousands of generations. You are the offspring of a father and mother who worked to make sure you survived in your most fragile state. You are the citizen of a country who has endured many wars and plagues to make sure that you and every citizen has a happy and bountiful life. In you millions of little cells are working day and night to ensure that you live to see the sun rise another day and give you another chance to be the best man you can be. You unlike the animals of the earth have the capacity to love another person and make sure that their lives can also be enlightened and certainly you are worthy enough for me to extend my hand towards you and pick you up as my brother who I strive to love and care for. If you are worthy of all these things then you are indeed worthy to have food to eat and water to drink. Come, take the medicine and let me put you on my shoulders and take you to a hospital where people will find your life worthy of saving. All you have to do is say yes."

"How do you know these things?" I said with tears in my eyes. "Who told you of my worth? Who told you of this love? Who gave me all of this supposed worth? Was it my father or my mother? My sister or my brother? Or you?"

"The same one that gave me worth and the strength to come to you and help you in your hour of dire need."

He gave me the pills and water. I took the pills. I got them down with water. And I took his hand.