I feel bad

Just the other day, I was at work and I was getting asked random questions by passengers. I was starting to get annoyed when an older lady came up to me and asked me

“Excuse me, do you know where I can buy some lipstick?”



My mother raised me to be a person that respects her elders so I calmly told her a few places that she would be able to find lipsticks. I watched her walk away but soon my attention was caught on a few customers that I had to serve. They were nice and I did my best to match their level of ‘niceness’. Time went on and about fifteen minutes later, I saw a figure approaching me.

“Excuse me, do you know where I can buy some lipstick?”

It was the same old lady. I tried to tell her again the places that I had mentioned before, but she just looked very confused. She ended up nodding and saying she knew where Duty Free was, and started walking away.

She walked slowly. Her figure looked fragile and I wondered how she had gotten here in the first place. Was she going to be okay? Who was she travelling with? I desperately tried to follow her with my eyes, and spot where she had gone but I lost her once she went around MoneyCorp. I tried to look out for the grey hair, full of volume and life, her lost expression. I felt guilt crawling up inside me and lodging on my stomach, it turned and turned as I feared for the woman’s well being.

It took me a good twenty minutes of looking around the seats to see her again. She was sitting 6 rows in front of my shop. She looked around aimlessly, as if she couldn’t understand what was going on in the middle of the crowd. That day wasn’t even one of the busiest days in the airport, but it looked like everyone was walking near her and making her feel claustrophobic. She was sitting next to a man in a red coat and a red cap. I wondered if they were together. Would he have chosen such a bright colour to attract her attention? Was it so that if she got lost she could look out for him?

But then my mind started swirling with ‘what if’s and ‘what would she do’s. Did she have any memory problems? Could she be having an episode? How would she find him? Would she be okay?

In the middle of all of this, I ended up spotting the two of them talking. I saw her moving her arms as if she were preparing to get up and ask someone else where to get lipstick. The guilt that was eating me up calmed down slightly as I saw she was okay, just slightly confused. She had someone with her that seemed to be looking out for her.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re okay now.