The John Wick

I was in the gym tonight. I was riding the bike, trying to keep my mind off the timer.
Counting down. Thirty more minutes. Twenty-nine more minutes. Twenty-eight more minutes.

This big man comes into the room. Big man. Dark skin, big smile.

“If you need the bike,” I tell him, “I’ve only got a few minutes left.”

Looking for an excuse to stop punishing myself like this.

“Nah,” he says. “No aerobics tonight.”

He starts a quick regimen of weights. I make another joke. “That looks like a workout for someone my size,” I tell him.

“I used to be bigger,” he tells me. Then he tells me about how he got sick.

We talk for a while longer. He talks about his daughters. His smile shines when he does.

At the end of it, I give him my hand. “My name’s John,” I tell him.

He looks surprised. Surprised that I’d want to touch him, I guess.

He smiles then. A bit surprised, a bit relieved. He tells me his name.

“Hope to see you around,” he tells me.

________

A stranger gave him a hand. That’s all it took.
It’s the little things we do.
Remember that the next time you think it’ll take a lot to change the world.

You don’t have to change the world.
Changing one person’s day, one day at a time, that’s enough.