Staying Human
Mid-December in the town of Bexley was dreary and windswept. The snow barely brushed the ground, with most of it already turning to slush. The local coach station, with its perpetual drafts, felt like the last remnant of a time left behind. The air was tinged with the scent of black coffee from the buffet, astringent disinfectant, and the faint trace of fading hope. Glass doors clattered in the wind, ushering in bursts of icy air along with people whose faces were reddened by the cold.
Margaret hurried through the waiting hall, glancing up at the station clock to check the time. She was only passing through, having wrapped up a brief business trip to a nearby town ahead of schedule. Now she just needed to get home to Londonwith two changes along the way. This station was the first, and by far the bleakest.
Her ticket was for an evening coach, and she was now facing a three-hour wait, feeling the damp boredom of the place soak through even the lining of her expensive wool coat. She hadn’t set foot in this part of the country for nearly ten years, and everything here struck her as smaller, duller, slower, endlessly distant from her current life.
Her heels rang out clearly on the tiled floor. Margaret stood out like a bright flaga sand-coloured wool coat, immaculate hair barely disturbed by her long journey, and a leather satchel slung over her shoulder.
Her gaze, used to appraising and sifting, drifted over the waiting hall: a shop assistant languidly scrolling through her mobile, an elderly couple quietly sharing a pastry, a man in a battered jacket gazing into the middle distance.
She could sense the glancescurious, but not hostile; more like simple acknowledgement: not one of us. Inwardly, she agreed. She only needed to make it through, to cross this pocket of time and space as if through a bad dream. By tomorrow morning, shed be home, in the comfort of her warm London flat, far from this biting loneliness that clung so heavily to small-town England.
Just as she decided where best to sit, a man blocked her way.
He looked to be around sixty, perhaps a bit older. His face was weathered, unspectacular, the kind that fades into the memory. He wore an old, but carefully patched, jacket and held a deerstalker hat in his hands; he must have taken it off on stepping inside. He hadn’t stepped deliberately in front of her, rather, he materialised in her path, as if conjured out of the very greyness of the station hall. When he spoke, his voice was subdued, oddly flatdevoid of inflection.
Excuse me, miss… Would you know where I could get a drink of water round here?
The question just hung in the air, feeling as out of place as the man himself. Margaret, barely glancing at him, waved a hand over to the kiosk with the yawning shop assistant. Rows of plastic bottles stood out behind the glass.
Over there, at the kiosk, she said briskly, starting to edge around him. A small, sharp irritation pricked at her. A drink. He called her miss. All those odd, old-fashioned words. Couldnt he see for himself? It was obvious.
He nodded and whispered a thin, Thank you, but didnt move. Instead, he stood there, head bowed as though gathering his strength for those few steps. Something in that pause, in his helplessness before a simple act, made Margaret pause, glancing back at him for an instant.
She noticed. Not his clothes or his years, but the beads of sweat that had broken out on his temple and were now rolling down his cheek despite the chill in the hall. She saw his fingers clench and unclench the hat, the pallor of his lips, and the haziness in his eyes, fixed blankly on the floor, seeing nothing.
A jolt went through her. Her rush, her irritation, her sense of superioritythey all crumpled and blew away in a heartbeat, as though a crack had appeared in the carefully-built world inside her. She didn’t think, she simply acted.
Are you feeling all right? she found herself asking, and her voice, usually steely, sounded unexpectedly gentle. She stepped closer to him instead of drifting away.
He lifted his gaze to her. There was no plea in those eyes. Only embarrassment and confusion.
Think its my blood pressure… Bit dizzy… he murmured, his eyelids fluttering, as if just staying upright was costing him.
Without thinking, Margaret slipped her hand under his elbow, careful but firm.
Dont stand here. Lets get you sat down. Her voice was quiet but authoritative. She steered him to the nearest available benchthe very one shed almost passed by.
Helping him to sit, she crouched down in front of him herself, at once forgetting how odd it must look.
Sit back. Just rest. Breathe. No rush.
Then she stood and hurried to the kiosk. She returned with a bottle of water and a plastic cup.
Carefulsmall sips, she instructed, pouring for him.
With her other hand, she pulled a paper tissue from her coat pocket and dabbed gently at his forehead. Every fibre of her being was focused on this man: his uneven breaths, the faint flutter in his pulse that she found at his wrist.
Help! Her voice rang out across the hallnot a cry of panic, but an order, a summons to action. Someones unwell! Call for an ambulance!
The coach stationthe holding place for those with nowhere urgent to besuddenly sprang to life. The elderly woman was first with her packet of heart tablets. The man from the corner pulled out his mobile and dialled emergency services. Even the shop assistant left her counter. Others gatheredthose anonymous faces that blend into the background. Now they stepped forward, forming a ring around the crisis.
Margaret knelt beside him, speaking in a soothing murmur, firmly holding his cold fingers in her own. In that moment, she was neither a successful businesswoman nor an outsider. She was simply a human being, present when needed. That, it turned out, was enough. More than enough.
Then, in the hush that followed, another sound broke in from outsidea rapid siren that cut off at the entrance and the bang of the doors. Into the hall swept two paramedics in NHS blue, trailing the chill of December.
The ambulance crews arrival worked like a signal. Those whod gathered now fell back, clearing a path to the bench. The bustle faded to an expectant hush. Margaret, still beside the man, looked up and met the paramedics professional, tired eyes.
What happened? asked the woman, dropping to one knee beside the patient. Her movements were swift and sure.
Margaret spoke with the same crisp clarity she used in office meetings, though this time her voice held only fatigue and relief.
He said he felt faint, dizzy, sweating heavily. Said it was his blood pressure. We gave him water, a heart tablet. Seems stable now.
While she spoke, the other medic wrapped a blood pressure cuff around the mans arm, shining a small torch into his eyes. The man roused enough to softly answer questionshis name, his age, what medications he used.
The paramedic nodded at Margaret. That was exactly right. Well take him in, check him over, get a drip started.
She helped the man unsteadily to his feet, supporting him as they headed for the open door and the waiting ambulance outside. He turned, seeking out Margaret in the lingering crowd. His gaze found hers.
Thank you, love, he rasped, voice hoarse and eyes brimming with sincere gratitude. You might have saved my life.
Margaret could only nod, a strange emptiness ringing inside her where adrenaline had surged just moments before. She watched as they walked him out into the cold, towards the white shape of the ambulance. Someone muttered, Shut the door, its freezing! as the icy air flooded the hall.
The door banged shut. The siren faded into the distance, and slowly, reluctantly, the coach station drifted back to its regular limbo, all slow waiting and weariness.
Margaret stood where she was, glancing down at her own hands. Red marks shone on her right palmthe imprint of the bag shed been clutching. Her hair was a wreck, her coat rumpled and streaked at the hem from kneeling on the floor.
She made her way to the washroom. The icy water stung her skin. In the cracked mirror, she saw a face smudged with streaked makeup, eyes tired, hair in disarray. Not the polished, invulnerable face shed worn for years, but a real, human onealive with concern, with fatigue, with sympathy.
She dried her face with a thin paper towel and, avoiding her own reflection, wandered back to the hall. Over an hour remained until her bus.
Margaret went to the same kiosk and bought a bottle of waterthis time for herself. She took a sip. It was just ordinary water, cold and plain. But now, it felt like the most important thing in the world. Not just a drink, but a connection. A thread of humanity, woven in the instant you stopped seeing someone else as a nuisance or a fixture and simply sawa person.
The faces around herthe shop lady, the elderly woman, the young mum struggling with a pramall seemed changed. Their features, still worried, still red from the cold, now looked honest. Real. Shed never seen truer faces.
And as she eyed her own reflection in the grimy glass, in her crumpled coat and with a furrowed brow, shefor the first time in yearslooked truly herself. Not an image, but a human who could hear anothers silence and respond.
She returned to her seat, putting the water beside her. The same lethargy hung about the hall, yet something had shifted. She no longer regarded the people around her with distant irritation. She noticed the small things: the way the shop assistant brought a steaming cup of tea to the elderly lady with a cane; how a man helped a young mum get her pushchair through the door. These little moments pieced together a new picturenot a gloomy one, but a quiet one, shaped by the unwritten rules of people looking out for one another.
Margaret took out her phone. A new work chat notification flashedsomething about confusion in the figures. A couple of hours ago, shed have thought it pressing. Now she replied simply: Sort it tomorrow. Its manageable. And turned off the notifications.
That afternoon she remembered a simple, nearly forgotten truth. Masks are neededprofessional, successful, untouchablelike costumes for different stages of life. They have their place. But beneath them, your own self must remember how to breathe. It’s dangerous to start believing you are only the mask.
Today, in the bleak draught of a coach station, her mask cracked. Through the split, something realher ability to worry for someone else, to drop to a grubby floor without a thought for her imagebroke free. She was, for a little while, not Mrs. Hastings, Head of Department, but simply the girl who helped.
To stay truly human isnt to give up all masksits to always remember whats underneath. And sometimes, as today, to let whats vulnerable and real emerge. Even if its just to reach out a hand.
