From the Shadows

On a dark and almost vacant street, an old man sat alone atop a red plastic milk crate, rolling a cigarette, wincing, and sighing heavily.

He had come here to escape the loudness of the city (an impossible endeavor, he now realized) to find a place more suitable for what he now knew was inevitable.

“Either I’m crazy,” he grunted, “or they are.” He took a drag of his cigaret as a pool of something black-looking dripped and spread beneath him.

He exhaled, coughed, and grimaced from the pain. “Somewhere out there someone’s buying toothpaste as if everything’s normal”, flashed through his brain, and in that moment he had never felt more alone.

He managed to reposition himself on the crate and wondered when it would end. It felt as if a cold wind were blowing through his body.

To the left of him he heard the click-clack of high heels echoing off the concrete. A young woman approaching. She was wearing a dark pea coat and woolen hat, her hands were stuffed into her jean pockets from the cold.

She stopped suddenly, directly across from the old man, who was, except for the burning end of his cigarette, concealed by night. She appeared to be examining a poster plastered on the side of a run down church, barely visible in the dull yellow glow of the street lamp directly above her.

It was the same poster the old man had been contemplating only minutes before. “Another one", thought the old man. “How do they all buy such such rot.” After a minute or so, quite unexpectedly, the woman made an attempt to tear at it, but, as it was glued well, spat at it instead. “Healthcare?” He heard her ask. “Such shit”

As she continued on her way, the old man took a drag of his cigarette for the very last time, exhaled, smiled, and collapsed.