Reblog : Generosity

I’ve re-blogged this to take part in today’s Daily Prompt – “Train stations, airport terminals, subway stops: soulless spaces full of distracted, stressed zombies, or magical sets for fleeting, interlocking human stories?”. Hope you like it.

The train station was as busy as ever on this cool November morning. Commuters rushing to make their habitual seat on their train to work, others arriving into town ready to attack the day anew and survive another day at the grindstone of employment.
Mixed in with these station regulars were the people travelling for other reasons – some good, some bad. The woman on her way to meet her lover, the guilt etched in her face as she thought of her husband driving home from the station with a smile on his face, not knowing the truth of his situation.
The young man and woman off to the airport for their first holiday together as a couple, he only thinking of the sex he can’t wait to have, her thinking of only of how close they will be after spending a whole two weeks together.
The older man, dignified and almost military in his bearing, travelling to the funeral of a friend, finally taken by the weak heart that had plagued him for years.

Into this cauldron of humanity walks a smiling man, with a large tray suspended round his neck in the manner of ice-cream sellers in the cinema. Contained in the tray, displayed in rows like jewellery on velvet cushions, were an assortment of pastries. Pain au chocolat, croissants, danish pastries, cinnamon swirls, all glistening with sweetness.
As this man walked toward the centre of the concourse, the intoxicating smell dancing among the people around him, eyes began to follow his progress as interest was piqued. He stopped, and in a voice tinged with mirth loudly announced,
“Ladies and gentleman. Greetings to you all on this fine morning. As a token of kindness and to help you on your journey today, I have here some fine pastries. Please, avail yourself of them, free of charge of course! I only ask that later today when you think back to this moment, you maybe think about how a small gesture of generosity and kindness can bring a smile to even the gloomiest of mornings”.

Several people began to congregate around him, looking into his tray to select a pastry for themselves. Once the first person took one (an account manager for a plumbing supplies firm, on his way to meet a potential new client), other people took it as a signal to pickup their own selection. They were pastries that are dreamed of. Warm to the touch, plump, the filled ones heavy with sweet chocolate or syrup, the croissants light and buttery. As each person bit into their own pastry they could not help but smile, and offer small noises of satisfaction and enjoyment.

After twenty minutes or so, the tray was empty. Those people lucky enough to get a pastry were left feeling a tiny bit happier than they had been before this smiling man had arrived.

The man himself stood with a satisfied grin. He had come to the station this morning in the hope of brightening peoples day. As these people set off on their commute, or their walk from the station to their offices, they would begin to feel more than happy, more than satisfied after eating these gorgeous treats. You see, within each pastry he had put a small dose of LSD. With no taste other than the rich, dark chocolate or the sweet sugary cinnamon, it had been consumed completely unawares and now, for the rest of the day, some of these people would experience a rather more interesting time than they first thought they would when they got up this morning. “Yes” he though to himself, “it’s good to give”.