He stood on the edge of the Pier, a dark figure in a lifeless world. If the light had been proper, you might have seen how tattered his clothes were - how his hair was not quite combed, the lackluster effort of his blackened fingernails, his shoes which had been pushed to the extreme of several large and revealing holes. You might have seen how his hands shivered in the tattered remains of his coat, his black eyes, just another piece of a fragmented soul, drifting from the rigid gray waters, to the dents and rips in the wood finishing of the Pier. You also might have seen several silver tears, large and wet, slipping down his face, which was scarred from past days. You might have seen how he stuck out his tongue and swallowed them before they touched society - before they were felt.
His memories were never good - broken like shattered glass, spilled across the deserts of his mind. Even if he could sow them back together, they would never be the same. Simple small things were easy to capture in his mind - like what he managed to eat last night, the name of his long lost mother, and his first dog. When he went back however - to where he lived before this endless nights of cold desertion - the days before he ever knew a man called Louis Carmen - his mind was a cloud of thick gray smoke that clouded his vision no matter his efforts.
~-He could fight. He had no weapons.-~
In the mornings, he would find, that somehow, that last night, he had fallen asleep where he had last stood, a pile of human flesh in cloth for the lack of food he acquired. Huddled up, people would usually walk by him. Sometimes, if he were lucky he would find a few crumpled up dollar bills by his side. If he were lucky. But he was rarely lucky. This was Detroit. He was no single man.
On the date of September fifteenth - mid month and turning increasingly cold - he stood up to find several five dollar bills tucked neatly into the pockets of his coat. He did not smile - smiling was something he did so little of it no long registered in his mind. Instead, he shoved the bills further in his pocket and stood in search of the nearest coffee place.
There she was - sitting on the bench across the pier, hands tucked in her pockets, blond hair pulled back into two small braids. When he looked across at her, she smiled, and ejected a brown leather wallet from the pocket of her coat. She was the giver. He wanted to ignore her - pass on like had had not seen her but she stared at him unblinkingly, tapping the wallet with her manicured nails. "I think you should thank me, considering I just bought you breakfast." He turned slightly, unsure what to say. "How do you know its breakfast?" He said this in what was meant to be a condescending tone but ended up being slow and shaky. "Give me a break." The smile slipped from her face. "Common decency is always respected."
He walked several steps closer, slipped the bills from his pocket and handed them to her, positively sure of his actions. "You don't look old enough to be out this early." "Either do you." He said nothing. He didn't remember ever being challenged in such a manner. The challenges he usually faced were physical. He was lost, so instead said nothing. He waited for a moment but she did not take the money.
"I don't want this."
"You need that."
"I don't need your charity."
"Get over yourself."
He stood for a moment, frozen. Then, without another word, dropped the bills on the bench and stalked off, over coat snapping behind him in the early morning hours.
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