A man on the street

I am partly using this blog as a writing and memory tool in order to remember all the odd things I see and do and use them in the future. This will hopefully explain the randomness of what follows.

I have been painting a lot recently but I am not too skilled at using a brush so I finger paint, leaving acrylics smeared into my nails and embedded into the dirty beige carpet they lays on only a quarter of my tile floor. I don't wash my hands incredibly well so there is always chunks of paint left on my skin that I pick at while in class. The other day, I was painting a color scape and was in a rush to meet a friend so I ran my hands under water for a few seconds and hurried out the door, layers of pink and blue paint caked on my hands. My hands were soggy still from the wet paint and the water so I was trying my best not to touch anything and treated my hands like I was running with scissors. I heard the bells strike and realized I was late so I started to pick up my speed. In true klutz fashion, I tripped on an invisible speed bump in the air, making me fall forward an catch myself on the nearest stationary object. That object happened to be a man standing in the middle of the side walk staring up at nothing but the rain the was falling in huge drops that splash open and reveal a reflection of the dingy purple sky. My painted hands smeared on his right arm leaving a sad trail of faded baby colors. I was in a trench coat, scarf, rain boats, and had two layers of sweatshirts on that made impossible for me to bend my arms more than 90 degrees-- all he wore was a t-shirt and jeans that had a long whole along the right seem that ran parallel with the tops of his sneakers. I apologized but he didn't move or acknowledge my words. So I apologized again. Nothing. I tried a different approach.
"You have a paint on your arm," I said loudly.
Not a flinch.
I looked at the sky that he was staring at. It looked like the same sky that comes before a tornado, trying to clear out all the rain before the wind. Then I looked at him. His chin was very high, which put him in an uncomfortable looking position. I noticed that there were tears in his eyes, tears that were not streaming done his face because gravity had no where fro them to go. I didn't know what to do! I hoped that it wasn't the paint drying on his arm that made him cry and, by the slow steady mummers of pain, I knew it was more than that. I wanted to talk to him, wanted to find out what was wrong and if he needed any help. But I was running late. The only thing I could think to do was to give him a hug. I put my purse in my hand, walk right in front of him and threw my arms awkwardly around his, which were tight on his sides. He moved his head out of the awkward position, causing his tears to crash onto the shoulder of my raincoat. I could feel his gaze as I walked away, turning back a few feet down to see that he had decided to take cover in the library.