Marta Moment #3

Okay... A Marta moment... A weird one...

I was waiting for the train to arrive at my station and a certain fellow, visibly troubled, came up to me and asked me if he could use a pen, I assume to write some important number or information down quickly. Surprisingly I didn't have a pen on me at the time, which is rare. I usually keep a pen on me to write notes etc. while I'm reading various papers on the train. But that day I didn't. I said "Sorry " and then I watched him ask a few more people with out any luck. He was becoming more and more irritable with every rejection. After the train arrived I saw him board the same car as me and walk down the entire car and sit down directly behind me a little worried. After the train lurched forward the same man asked a teenager nearby if he could borrow a pen. The teenager handed him a relatively nice ink pen - a little nicer than the kind that companies hand out with their name or logo on them at conferences or job fairs... After the man grabbed the pen, he immediately upcapped the pen, ripped off the outer casing and threw everything on the floor keeping only the thin, inner, ink tube in his hands. The teenager (and I) was a little confused. We then watched the man shove the thin tube into a cast on his arm (the cast now visible after pulling up his sleeve) to scratch the skin beneath it. He had an itch. Obviously. And had been quite bothered by it. The scratching continued for a few moments and must have done the job because at the next station, the man threw the remaining pen part (the ink tube) onto the ground, got up and left the train without a word. After the door closed shut, I didn't really know what to say to the teenager except "Sorry about your pen. I suppose you can't use it now." He replied, "Yah. That's too bad."...