Somebody Saw Me Do It
Until he asked me to hold the paper, I never knew I was a witness.
It was a cold Wednesday morning, and I was with one of my guys in a small photocopy shop while waiting for the file I went to print to be done. The man next to me also had come to print a document. He kept folding and unfolding the edge of the paper while the young lady sitting by the computer told him where he needed to put his signature.
"Sir, you need to write your name down there."
He continued to look at the paper for a few seconds, then he faced me.
“Please, can you witness it for me?”
I looked at my guy's face and looked at the lady by the computer because the way he had requested it looked so serious to be done in a small shop. Just a small wall fan that was making a sound while hardly blowing from one side to another, a wall clock that has stopped working, an update calendar near the front door, and this smell coming out of the printer like it has overworked.
I signed where he showed me.
After I was done signing, and as I gave him the paper, he looked at me, smiled, and said, "Thank you very much. It looked like it was your first time witnessing someone. It is also my first time doing this by myself."
What he said sounded so small, but it stayed with me for a while, and I talked about it with my guy that was with me.
Though he never told me what the form was meant for, and I never bothered asking him. But looking at how he was holding on to the document after, I could sense that it really mattered or was sort of important to him. He read through it again, slowly, like someone who wanted to be so sure they had not made any mistake. Then across his signature, he ran his thumb.
The printer began to make the usual sound it usually gives again. The young lady reached out to collect another paper, and the man carefully put his files inside a brown envelope.
Before he went out of the shop, he looked at me and asked if I was sure that I had my signature on it. I nodded my head to give the yes answer.
The printer started making that familiar grinding sound. The young man reached over to collect another sheet, and the woman carefully put her document inside a brown envelope.
He smiled. "Good. At least I have a witness to that."
I looked at him as he stepped out of the printing shop that day with that thing, an envelope, he was holding tightly to his chest.
Nothing big happened. There was no clapping. There was no long talk. Just as the man left, a lady came in asking for a passport photograph, and the shop continued with the usual noise that we have all been used to whenever we are there to print.
But what the man called me was what kept ringing in my head: a witness.
Before then, all I ever thought about was when something important happened; that is what witnessing means. That day, I got a new perspective about what it means. And just like that man in that shop, he was about to cross a small line or apply for something, I guess, and he needed someone to be present.
Just for those few seconds that he asked for my help, his ordinary decision had another pair of eyes beside it. Though I did not help him to fill the form or instruct him on what to do. I was just there with my signature, and that was all he wanted as a fact record.
And maybe that is why his face stayed with me. Not because I did any big favor to him, but bet, for just that tiny little time together, he needed a witness to be the person he was becoming.
Thank you for reading.
Images created by Gemini AI
