The man on the ferry ramp

The ferry from Port Said across to Port Fouad is a short crossing, and the man who waves the cars aboard is often short with them too. A wave too sharp, a shout at a driver who was only slightly slow.

The easy reading is that he is rude. Some passengers say so, loudly enough for him to hear.

Here is another reading. Perhaps he has not slept. Perhaps someone at home is ill. Perhaps he has stood on that ramp since before dawn and something hurts that nobody can see. Not a crisis, just enough weight that there is nothing left for patience with strangers.

People who are struggling to keep their own head above water have very little to give anyone else. Not patience, not a smile, not the benefit of the doubt. Most of the time the struggle is invisible. Sometimes the danger is not even real, only feared, but the person inside it still feels the water rising.

That changes how I read a great deal of behaviour that seems wrong. The shopkeeper who snapped. The customer who complained about something small and would not let it go. The friend who went quiet and stopped replying. We judge the act and skip the condition behind it.

None of this makes the shout pleasant. It does make it smaller. Before deciding what someone is like, it is worth asking whether, right now, they are fighting for their own breath.