Empathy Read Online Free PDF

go through with them. He wanted to love them. There was a palpable relief in being Doc. He felt suddenly happy, purposeful in life. Being happier let him see more. It put the present day in sharper perspective. Of course, that had its own side effects because then Doc began to notice the other Americans. He started looking around at all the sights one normally ignores. Doc’s focus moved away from the hopeful and on to the fact that more and more people on the street were opting for nonfunction at an increasingly early age. So many men and women stuck needles in their arms. Doc couldn’t even go to the post office without passing two or three on the nod.
    He felt personally responsible. If only he could come up with a solution. It was up to him. Doc couldn’t think of anyone else who could do it. Some of us walk to the store, Doc thought. And some stand there drooling, slowly sliding. The subway makes speeches under our feet .
    When he finished his advertising duties for the day, Doc started wearily back toward home. There was so much bad news in the air and on people’s faces. Recently someone had mentioned that there would be no more winters due to global warming and no more rain forests. But this year was as cold as it had ever been and so even some disaster news was called into question. Personal disasters, however, were everywhere in human form, lumped under blankets in corners or smack in the middle of the sidewalk, bleeding from the face with no gloves while the ambulance took forever.
    â€œHello, ambulance?” said Doc into a pay phone. “There is a white man, mid-forties, in a business suit. I think he had a heart attack.”
    It was the only way to get them to come.
    â€œAre you sure it’s not a homeless person?” the radio dispatcher said.

    â€œYes,” Doc said. “He’s wearing a watch.”
    It worked this time but even desperate methods were increasingly undependable because there were fewer and fewer pay phones that actually worked or that took coins and not just calling cards.
    Every time it rained, Doc knew it rained on people. When it snowed, it froze them. There was no longer weather without imagining human objects. The cozy inside became an increasingly rare commodity and Doc was aware of this all too well. But even with a substantial amount of knowledge, every day something big happened in the world that Doc could not fully understand. If there was a global economic crisis, where did all the money go? Was the money unreal in the first place, only now everyone finally said so? Or did a couple of people manage to grab it all? Just by looking out the window Doc noticed more news than there was room for and he felt curiously uncomfortable about people everywhere getting really angry while Americans stayed the same.
    It happened to be Christmas again, which was always confusing because he couldn’t help feeling certain feelings. Certain whimsies entered Doc’s heart even though they had nothing to do with his own life. The public spectacle intensified at this time of year and, caught up in the display, Doc had a lot of opportunities to look around wondrously. New Yorkers are introspective in that way. They’re the kind of crowd that pays attention to the crowd.
    While observing this particular Christmas, he was struck most particularly by the Emergency Disaster Services Mobile Canteen that was parked outside the tent-city refugee camp occupying Tompkins Square Park. He wasn’t sure which word surprised him the most: emergency, disaster or services . It was clearly a time for setting priorities, every American knew that. Should they choose preventative food on their plates or pay insurance bills for hospitalization that didn’t exist? Of course, this was a middle-class dilemma. Christmas smelled sexy, like wet cheese.
    Those three hundred homeless people living in the park across
the way had certainly changed his life. Now, every night, the