A smile from a stranger

One thing that comes with being a Student is the need to use public transport.

As you walk towards the bus stop you see a group of people, some sat down, some stood up some listening to 'Ipods' or 'MP3 Players and some chatting away to 'friends' or companions. You know you are going to be at this bus stop for awhile as you have grossly miscalculated how long it would take you to walk from your house to town, therefore you make a b-line for a wall that is ring fencing a set of lovely plants that the County Council had forgot about.

You first start to look at the group of school children, some you perceive to be about sixteen and other around a year younger. They are laughing, giggling and shouting but one of them seems to catch your eye, she seems to be lifeless. She isn't joining in, she isn't laughing and she doesn't seem to be breathing, she's stood at the edge, no one is noticing her. As you look at her you create your own image of her life, her troubles and her problems, thinking how you could help her solve them and bring her back to life.

You start to think to yourself that you should go up to her and start a conversation, tell her she looks beautiful today and that a smile can make her feel so much better. You're a confident lad around women, no one will deny that, but one thing you don't want to do is scare her and make her feel worse than she looks to be feeling.

A bus arrives at the stop and her 'friends' get on, she is about to follow them but she looks right at you, directly into your eyes. You smile at her and nod your head, hoping that she will smile back and acknowledge your gesture, expecting her to tell you to 'get Lost!' but in more profane terms.

What you hoped happens, she smiles at you with both her eyes and her mouth, she then waves and does a little dance with her feet. She then gets onto the bus and it moves away, away from you and the cold of the day's air. You realise that you will most likely never see her again in your life time, or in any other lifetime but you feel satisfied that your smile, a smile from a stranger might just have saved her life and saved the life of her family.

A person commits suicide every fourteen minutes, if everyone smiled at three strangers a day and meant it, maybe that number would be one suicide every hour. No one is asking you to send two thousand pounds to Bangladesh or to venture to Nepal to save millions.

You should do what you can with what you have.