Street Talk

There's the man who just moved onto the southern corner of one of the busiest intersections in downtown. Every morning I see him hesitate before he stops peddling as his bicycle makes its way across the greenly-lit white lines. It makes me think about how if he doesn't peddle, then he's really not even trying to make it across that street...like he's waiting for a car to knock that metal out from under him so he never has to peddle again. And on the twelfth day, I watched a hand fall from beneath the sheet that covered the stretcher making its way into the back of the amblulance. That hand wore a black bicycle glove and the sight of it made me shiver like I had never done so before.
Then there's the woman who reads a book while she walks. I notice how she stops and talks to random street objects and curious animals behind fences. I wonder if she's sharing with them the wonders of the pages she's been reading. Day in and day out I witness her nose deeply planted into those pages and the way she has drowned herself in a reality that is only hers. I wonder if this is her escape from her own reality; the reality that she's walking shoeless down a sidewalk full of glass and yesterdays trash. Her face is always dirty and her eyes never seem to stop moving. I wonder how glorious her days are...spending them anywhere but here.