Change

(Change is the prompt for this week's Sunday Scribblings)

There is an old man who often stands by the traffic lights at the corner of the Eastern Main Road and El Dorado Road in Tunapuna and begs. He comes up to the car with his flat palm outstretched and says: "Change, please." Somehow whenever he says it to me, I don't hear him asking for money (although I have given him a few dollars on occasion). Something in the way he says "Change, please" makes it sound as though he is asking me to change as a person (whatever it is I need to change). Maybe he's an angel disguised as a beggar. He says that same "Change , please" to all the cars that stop at the red light. I wonder if everyone hears it the same way.