SONJA
Sowing Positive Karma
Floki draws attention. Thick, curly white fur. Almost soft like wool if not for the debris it collects when he walks into the thicket. A woman once saw him and laughed. “Er schaut wie ein Lamm an der Leine aus!” A lamb on a leash! She wasn’t wrong.
He makes people stop. They speak. I listen. My German gets better because of him. That’s how I met Sonja. She had just stepped off the tram. Gray hair, soft steps. She asked if she could touch him. I said yes. Floki leaned into her hand. He loves people. Except drunks. He stiffens when they’re near. Perhaps he takes the cue from me. They say dogs take it from the owner, kind of energy transference.
Then her words came—fast, unfiltered, like water breaking through a dam. Her husband drinks every day. The doctor told him to stop. He won’t. Her eyes filled, but the tears held their ground. She wiped them before they fell. She told me about her parents. Harsh. Cold. She lived with her grandmother once in Styria. That’s where the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger is from, she said. It felt important to her.
I wasn’t ready for this. I wanted to leave, but something rooted me there. I remembered the Buddha. Loving-kindness as a path to healing. Jesus, seeing the face of God in the forgotten. Maybe this was a small mercy I could offer. A moment of stillness in the noise.
She kept talking. About pride. About people who were once admired, now waiting for handouts in their final days. Her voice had no anger. Only fatigue. I wondered if she was lonely. Or worse, invisible. Maybe her mind was unraveling. But then again, what is sanity in a world that forgets the weak?
We stood there a while. I didn’t say much. I didn’t need to. She just needed someone who wouldn’t look away. That’s rare. People sense grief, and they move on. They pretend not to see it. They fear it might be catching. But there’s a kind of holiness in not flinching from another’s pain.
She said she used to play the piano. That once, long ago, she had wanted to be a teacher. Her voice got softer when she spoke of that time. I could almost see the girl she used to be, hidden somewhere behind the folds of years and disappointment. Her words made me ache, though I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I believed her. Maybe because I’ve known the weight of unfulfilled dreams too.
Dr. King said alienation grows from injustice, from the quiet violence of neglect. Maybe that’s what I saw in her: the residue of a life bent under the weight of indifference.
Floki tugged at the leash. He’d had enough. I told her I needed to go. She took my hand and held it. Her grip was dry and warm. She thanked me for my time. But I was the one who had received something. She reminded me I was still human. That I could still feel. I nodded, quietly.
Some things are best left unsaid. But not unfelt.
Those who would give light must endure burning.
-Viktor Frankl