The Man without a Face

On the way to the Lama Temple, I saw from afar, a shadow of a man, perched on a low stool, shivering uncontrollably in the bitter winter cold. His furtive eyes darted from each passing person to the next, hands outstretched for a coin that would promise at least his next bare sustenance. As I drew near, I saw a horror which haunts me in dreams till very day, even when ensconced in my comfortable marshmallow existence a thousand miles away; a physical horror translated into a mental horror which I have no doubt will continue to plague me till the ends of my days.

His face had no semblance of a living human face; it was bright pink, as if the skin had been burned right off; a gaping hole when his nose should have been; and his eyes – o his eyes! – glazed over with a bottomless misery I can hardly begin to describe. I averted my eyes – surely as anyone would have – and numbed my soul. My thoughts struggled to find flat ground upon which to make camp. A great conundrum rose within me – do I reach into my pocket to give him a couple of ten yuans to alleviate his suffering or do I pass him by as I would any of the countless beggars along Wangfujing Street?

Perhaps he was a political prisoner, now free (if one could call it freedom). Perhaps he was a Tibetan who took to self immolation as a plea to the world for help. Perhaps he was a victim of the Cultural Revolution – a learned man caught in the wrong age. Perhaps he was one of the Falun Gong, tortured beyond belief, if one is to believe the stories. In the end, it didn’t matter. For I simply walked on. For to stop to help him only makes me aware of the millions more that I would have failed to help. The millions more shivering uncontrollably in the bitter winter cold. The millions more who would give everything to have one tenth of what I have been given in life. I would despair at the helplessness to help.  A lesser being such as myself cannot fathom such depths of anguish. I walked on, not because I was indifferent –quite the contrary I was moved beyond tears – nonetheless I walked on, because to stop is to discover the depths of your helplessness, not something I can handle at this point of my young life.

But “The Man without a Face”, as I name him, stays with me. He stares at me melancholic when the trivialities in life get me down. He dares me to despair at my own life. He gnaws at my guilt, my guilt of having food and drinks larger than my hunger and thirst. Because of him, I cannot but be happy. For him and those millions more, I cannot but be content. He gives my life meaning. He reminds me of how far I am from the abyss.

When I emerged from the Lama Temple, he was gone – vanished without a trace – faceless from the face of the earth.