Skipping Along

We had developed a nodding acquaintance the last few weeks, extended to greetings lately. The man was not recalled from the time prior to the pandemic; he stayed out in Choa Chu Kang in the west. Coming by around the back of the chair a light hand on the shoulder in passing, before he skipped 15m over to the couple who was just then turning from the upper path to cross Onan. Impossible to tell gender of either there beneath the umbrella, one pushing the chair and the other within. Elderly the pair seemed, decked in matching emerald green, which, remarkably, the man joining to intercept shared in almost the very same tone. Could have been family in question; friends at least. Chap had been sitting with his back to the path, his wife & daughter facing, so that one of the women must have alerted him to the passers-by. Neighbours possibly; good neighbours not sighted for some long while. Beneath the umbrella the couple could not have spied the chap; the rain had started up again. The man had been seen extending offerings before; even the rascal busker Rahim had benefited more than once. In this case from a distance the hand presenting had been hidden and all over in a flash, bounding back…This was not counted toward the formal zakat—the portion of the annual earnings set aside for charity. Sadoqah was the term; alms, the man helpfully spelt and translated. Not a large sum. That was what that was all about. The pondering continued long afterward without anything adequate.