Sonder: what is his story?

10:03 P.M. The Starbucks outside Bras Basah MRT station.

I sat at the French window, sipping my hot coco. My mom was poking at the blueberry muffin in the plate, her fork making sporadic jingling noises.  

He caught my eye, abruptly yet naturally. He was a tall Eurasian man, sauntering on the pedestrian path with a ‘ToyCastle’ shopping bag in his hand. Toy boxes filled the bag and jutted out in irregular shapes like Santa Clause’s rucksack on Christmas Eve. I caught a glimpse of a maroon-colored train painted on the cover of a box, its locomotive glistening with golden gleam. The red colour shone proudly against the gray concrete floor. He had another backpack which seemed to be weighing him down all the more, but he kept up the casual meander and clutched the shopping bag tighter.

Curious speculations crept up to me as the warmth of the drink seeps into my palm. Is he a traveller? He might have made a promise to his son, to buy him the ‘big red train’ that the boy had always longed for. His boy wanted to be a locomotive driver in the future! As a father, he didn’t think it quite feasible, but he spoiled his dreams anyway. Or there might be a toy gun inside, AK-47 even, that he had fancied, too, marveling at it in the action movies they watched together. Or perhaps he wanted to give him a surprise. The boy might yell at the bag full of treasures and fumble in it running through everything in unbelieving, quivering excitement. Or he might have bought the gifts for amendments. Maybe they had had a terrible argument and he wasn’t prompt in making an apology. Would he like the iron man model? That cost him a lot. But as long as his boy likes it, money is never a problem.

Or he might be a local. He could work in the insurance company next door and had just signed a big deal. He wanted to celebrate it with his family! He ran to the toy store and bought all that his boy had badgered him for. He might even have a necklace, or a bracelet, or a ring in his bag for his wife!

Or he might even have a daughter, a little girl who is astonishingly conversant in guns, cars and aeroplanes. She wanted that big shiny train in her favourite colour! Or he might have a twin. Two boys who might fight over who is to be the owner of the train. But he had anticipated that possibility and bought one for each. Or he might have bought only one, and want to observe their reactions. Would the elder brother give in? He had always been the one making concessions and truthfully, it’s not always fair.

Or he might have no children at all. Maybe he was expecting one. Those had been his dream toys when he was a boy himself! His family couldn’t afford such a luxury, and he didn’t want his child to live in eternal, fruitless waiting too.  

Or he might ......

He was turning his head now. He adjusted the strap of the bag and walked towards the zebra crossing. His shadow moved against the gray stretch of concrete ground. The light pole stood, showering his moving figure with mild, quiet, orange glimmer.

I stared at his silhouette in the distance, watching him merge into the darkness of crowds.

I could almost imagine him going back home, or back to his hotel, and checking every piece in the ToyCastle bag meticulously before packing them into his luggage. He might be content, or wistful, or uneasy, or he wouldn’t feel much because he was too tired after one day of running errands. He could have fallen sound asleep ......

What a rich collection of stories must have walked away.

I thought of the word ‘sonder’ suddenly.

Sonder. n. the relization that each random passersby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own——populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inhrited craziness——an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

When I first heard of it , it appeared extraordinary to me that there is a WORD to summarize that wonderfully intricate feeling of seeing a passer-by and being a passer-by simultaneously. We might have realized it more than once——when we engage in a lively conversation with the cashier, when we see a girl in two pony tails scampering by with her eyes lit bright, when we touch shoulder with an old man stooping, washing trays with his callous hands——that people all have a long sequence of stories with them, like a narrative movie, like a page-turner novel, if not more dramatic, or peaceful, or touching, or heart-wrenching than those that are ever written down for people to see.

In this world where everyone seems to be running, running on the escalator, running after buses, running for lunch and dinner, running in every minute, running everywhere in such an urgent manner that we seldom have the luxury of time to truly take a close look at ourselves, not to mention to people in our surrounding. But the truth is, everything we deem important is largely irrelevant in others’ lives. Our voice might only be a part of a confusing jumble of noise to others’ears. Even we ourselves——we could just be ‘an extra sipping coffee in the background, a blur of traffic passing on the highway, a lighted window at dusk’.

While this is the truth, it doesn’t mean we are a pathetic, lonely bunch. We can treat people the way we want to be treated back. For me, people that ran into my eyes are not random passers-by, but the main protagonist in his own play. He is a rich bundle of joy and sorrow, a person living his life to the fullest like I am doing for mine. Like a goldfish in a tank, swirling aimlessly to my eyes as a human. To it, however, every step is a purposeful stride towards something bigger, better and brighter.

Don’t be so fast to judge. With humility and patience, with the willingness to open up and imagine, with the empathy to listen and understand, the next time when you run into someone, ask yourself: what is his story?