broken english

His bicycle was his home.

He wouldn’t say it, but you could tell by looking at it. His entire life was contained in the basket mounted on the back: a blanket to lay on, phone charger, scarce clothes and a couple of books. The latter warmed my heart.

He had a friend in the park—a little squirrel which he shared his food with almost every day.

The whole ceremony was mesmerizing!

This man would find the biggest and the lowest branch on the tree (my favorite tree in the park by happenstance) and start lining up small chunks of the bread on it, all the way to the trunk. That little squirrel seemed to recognize the man right away and instantly would run down the tree to get the snack. Little animal showed no fears whatsoever about the intimate closeness of these human arms. Oddly enough, this scenery reminded me of the friendship between Mr.Jingles, the mouse, and Delacroix, the «crazy» prisoner from one of my favorite books, "Green Mile" by Stephen King. The one who was casted away by others and found heart connection with another misunderstood being. It was heartbreaking and touching at the same time…

John was the name of the man from the real life, not the book. I believe it was the simplified «American version» of his actual ethnic name, which he decisively changed for the sake of easier to communicate, easier for others. Originally he was from Syria. Broken English and a broken nose. Incredibly nice, polite and friendly. Twenty minutes into our conversation he mentioned that he used to work for the Red Cross back in the Middle East, more precisely he helped to clean the street off the dead bodies after bombing attacks...

Of course, it was the same war that eventually forced him to come here, to United States.

War might taken away his friends and family, his freedom of choice, crushed his dreams about creating a good life at the place he was born, a d undermined his abilities, but it sure didn’t take away his humanity, his resilience, the warmth of his heart and the light of his soul...

That squirrel—Mr. Jingles—from Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills, was a living testament of it. ✦