An Angry, Incoherent And Seemingly Misogynistic Man

 

      Last Friday, 26th of this month, I was inside a mall buying some necessities, and as I was walking towards the BreadTalk kiosk, a man, who seemed in his mid to late fifties, and was eating some bread which I presumed he bought from BreadTalk, tried to approach me. He was talking incoherently and I could not understand what he was saying but the gesture of his hand (with his palm up) was unmistakable: he was begging for alms. I signaled for him to stop as his mask was on his chin and wasn’t covering his mouth and he had no face shield and was talking non-stop, which meant that he was firing lots of droplets towards my direction. He stopped from approaching me but he continued talking. I was a bit perplexed because this man was wearing nice and neat clothes: yellow polo shirt, blue denim pants and decent and clean shoes. I was wearing just an old black T-shirt, a pair of biking shorts and rubber sandals, so I looked a lot poorer than him.

     I stepped away from him and a few moments later, while I was at the cashier, opening my wallet to pay for the pieces of bread I was buying, the man, with his palm up, appeared again, like he was attracted by the scent of my decrepit and abandoned wallet, and begged me for alms. The store’s all-female crew castigated him, told him that it was prohibited to solicit inside a mall and that he was scaring the customers away. The man retorted with angry and rapid words, which again I did not understand, but I was certain there were swear words there. He sounded like a German delivering an impassioned speech with a thick Irish accent.

     Anyway, I paid for my bread, ignored the man, and walked away.

     A few minutes later, I was passing by another food kiosk and there was a lone customer there, a man wearing a yellow polo shirt and blue denims—the beggar. He seemed arguing with the two women manning the store, his incoherent words-- he sounded like a furious Korean in a violent Korean movie without subtitles-- haunting both my ears as I walked away.

     I didn’t know why but the man, who seemed misogynistic, reminded me of our country’s president.

 

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