Please Don't Disappear

 

            Cassandra sat in her second story bedroom staring out the window at the unending flow of middle-aged men buying the attention of the young ladies that milled around the street on the sidewalk across from her home. Most of these girls were only a few years older than her and she made a point of interacting with them whenever she had the opportunity. She came from a stable, loving and compassionate family and at the same time knew her acquaintances that traversed the sidewalk only knew emptiness, grief, and abuse from the hands of so many men.

              She knew that they all had Daddy issues and were simply looking for some form of connection to fill that emptiness within them. Whenever she took a few moments to speak with them, she could see the grief, emptiness, and hollowness in their eyes, wishing she could do something to help. Lack of money was not the underlying issue, but despair, self-loathing and lack of stability with family acted as a horrible trinity that left them desperate to do anything to find connection.

              Cassandra was in her last year of high school and turned down the offer to join them on the sidewalk, with the argument that a great deal of money could be earned for interaction with these sad, desperate older men. As she turned down their offers she was struck with the idea of spying on these men, to see what their lives were truly like when they weren’t stalking young women.

              When her school year ended, her parents encouraged her to go to university, but she had no desire to take on debt for a possible job that would offer her no joy or satisfaction. “Social interaction,” she thought. “That is what I really need. I could work retail, or I could get a job with one of the many delivery services.” The week following graduation, she spent most days applying for a delivery job in every sector of the city, trusting that having a regular cycle of interaction with a variety of people at their front doors would be an opportunity to interact and hopefully have a positive impact on some of them.

              By the end of the week, she received two job offers, the second paying slightly higher than the first. As she and her family were far from wealthy and only owned one car, she needed to purchase a bus pass that would provide her with the means to travel from home to work and to home again. She arrived at her job ten minutes early on her first day, to interact with her teammates, and to be prepared to make her first delivery, which required frequent travel across the city in the company car.

              In between deliveries, she would spend her time studying a map of the city, determined to make the best use of her time, and avoid the busiest parts of the city. As she delivered her third package, she recognized the sad, middle-aged man as he opened the door. She smiled at him, spoke kindly to him, and wished him well, feeling somewhat dishonest as she interacted, knowing what kind of person he actually was, she hoped that friendliness and kindness would give some joy to someone who had fallen into a bad way of life.

              One day turned into many days, each week turned into many weeks, and before she knew it winter had arrived which made her delivery time slower and more dangerous. She could feel herself falling into a comfortable rhythm, ringing doorbells or knocking, smiling at the recipient, asking for their signature, and handing over the package. She knew that a smile and kind words always made the other person feel better and connected.

              In what became a regular pattern, often times the middle-aged men would invite her in for a chat, which she eventually came to understand as a natural response to her friendliness. Each time she declined their offer, she used the excuse of needing to continue delivering her packages and she would say goodbye, wishing them well, and that the rest of their day would bring them some joy.

              She completed her last delivery, returned to the warehouse, clocked out of her shift and rode the bus home to see numberless, sad middle-aged men nearly filling the bus. She kept her attention on the driver and watched one man leave, then another, then another, until she sat on the bus with three teenage girls and a handful of elderly women. Her stop arrived, she hurried off the bus, thanked the driver, and entered her safe and warm home to find her mother sitting alone at the kitchen counter.

              Instead of responding with her usual, “oh, the day was fine,” she decided to share her thoughts and concerns about how many sad people with whom she regularly interacted in her deliveries. “I really wish there was something I could do to make people happy,” she told her mother.

              “As long as you are kind to them, smile at them, and communicate that you genuinely care about them,” she said, “that is about all you can do. You would be surprised at how much an offer of genuine kindness improves a person’s life. But please be careful and never go into someone’s home. You never know what kind of people you will meet.”

              “Yes, I know,” Cassandra said. “I’ve been asked many, many times to come in for tea and to talk but I always tell them that I have more deliveries to make. I wish them well as I leave, wishing that I could do more to help. I didn’t have time to eat an actual lunch today, so I’m starving. Will dinner be ready soon?”

              “Dad needed to work a little later today,” her mother said. “So, we’ll all eat dinner together in about an hour. You can have a little snack right now if you want. We have some cookies in the pantry.”

              “Oh, perfect,” Cassandra said. “I’ll grab a couple to hold me over. But a hot, home cooked dinner will take care of my raging hunger. I am so glad that I have two days off and I so look forward to having nothing to do for a while. It’ll be nice to hang around with you and Dad until Monday comes around again. I’ll grab those cookies and collapse on my bed. Call me when Dad gets home. Thanks, Mom, love you.”

              Cassandra woke up to the sound of her mother calling her name, prompting her to stumble down the stairs and join her parents at the dinner table. The three of them had a pleasant evening together of a home cooked meal, and small talk while they ate. Aggressively yawning, Cassandra excused herself when the meal was done to take a shower and go to bed early. The next two days were spent in her pajamas, scrolling through social media and watching several streaming services in between meals.

              She woke up Monday morning to her alarm, to quickly dress, descend into the kitchen for a substantial breakfast and catch the bus for another day of work. It was on her sixth delivery after ringing the doorbell that she heard a crash from inside the home. She turned the door handle and pushed her way inside to find a grossly overweight middle-aged man dangling by the neck from a beam in the living room. She grabbed a chair, untied the rope and dropped the man to the floor.

              She checked for a pulse and could see that he was still breathing. “Oh, Mr. Johnson, hang on, keep breathing, I’m going to call an ambulance. This is terrible, please don’t leave like this. There are people all around that know you and would miss you if you were suddenly gone. I’m glad I arrived when I did. You need to let me help you.”

              Cassandra leaned against the kitchen counter as the paramedics entered Mr. Johnson’s home, checked his vitals, lifted him from the floor onto the gurney, and out the front door into the ambulance. Trembling because of the trauma she had just experienced, she placed a quick phone call to her manager, telling him everything that had just happened.

              Two more days passed, and Cassandra approached the front door of her next delivery for the day, to hear a gunshot. Without thinking about her response, she let herself into the house and once again found another sad, middle-aged man sitting on his couch, holding a pistol which he had just fired into the floor.

              “Oh, thank God,” she said, sitting down next to the man to slowly take the gun from his trembling hands.

              “Hello, little girl,” he said. “I am so glad you rang the doorbell when you did. If you had not shown up when you did, that bullet would be in my head right now rather than the floor. Thank you for coming.”

              “Yes, of course, Mr. Lilliput,” she said. “I need to make some phone calls to get you some help. It’s terrible that you are so sad and alone. It shouldn’t be this way. Stay on the couch and let me get you a glass of water. Take some deep breaths and help will be here very soon to help you put your life and thinking in proper order.”

              Within thirty minutes two people from a local hospital arrived, thanked Cassandra for her help and the phone call. She, the sad old man and the medical team all left the house at the same time. Cassandra then placed another phone call to her manager, once again explaining what had happened.

              “Cassandra, this is crazy,” he said. “You need to return to the warehouse and take the rest of the day off. That is two traumatic events in one week. You need to get some rest, spend some time with your family, and spend some time thinking about the good that you’ve accomplished today and on Monday. You’ve done very well. I’ll still pay you for a full day’s worth of work. I wish we had more people like you working here. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

              Cassandra hurried to the warehouse, took the bus home and told her mother the details of everything that had just happened. “This is exactly the kind of thing I’ve been hoping I become involved in to help others. I wonder why so many people are so sad that they’re willing to end themselves. I feel really good that I was able to help two people just this week.”

              She hugged her mother, grabbed some cookies from the pantry, ascended the stairs and collapsed on her bed, tormented by the looks of despair in so many of her delivery recipients. The depth of despair and subsequent joy in the faces of Mr. Lilliput and Mr. Johnson came to mind, giving her a wave of happiness, knowing that she intervened when no one else did.