Even with his back in a perpetual hunch, he stood at six feet, feet bare and body clad in rags tethered together by makeshift belts. He roamed the streets, stopping at stores to beg for food. Relieves himself wherever. Some are kind enough to give him water to drink. Others enable his smoking habit by offering him a cigarette. What passes for baths are moments when he’s unable to find a temporary shelter from the rain. It’s September now, and his ‘”baths” were becoming more regular.
It was said he was a drug addict. I imagine there are all sorts of ugly things — by one’s own hand or by others — that could cause a man to go mad. But have you ever wondered how that goes about? I mean stage by stage, how does a sentient being turn from a person to merely a person? Does it happen almost instantly when you fail to shake off a persistent, menacing emotion that you become full past the brim and you cross a certain boundary? Or does it happen in phases, giving the people around you nothing but subtle signs that were, in truth, loud and desperate cries for help? And then, there you are. You are a memory of a person. Not quite dead. Not quite alive either.
It’s puzzling, really. One time, he was trapped under the sidewalk, those slats that passed for a sewage pipe in our little city in the province. Though incoherent, you can tell he was calling for help. Therefore, his being trapped physically was still perceived as a form of confinement, as any healthy minded person would. But didn’t he know? Wasn’t he aware that the same thing was happening to him mentally?
Also bewildering is the fact that he can cross the street without getting hit. So there is still something left there, I suppose, but foremost is self-preservation. And when after a storm I saw him pass by our street, his gait full of imagined purpose, I felt relieved that he was still up and about.
disciple-to-one 