I pushed the heavy glass door of the municipal building onto the cold October rain. Leaving the building's concrete overhang, I walked briskly towards the train station's descending escalator.
Nearby, under the concrete overhang and sheltering from the ceaseless rain, sat an aging, thin black woman, wrapped in a black robe like some death shroud, her face insensate, her body inanimate. Next to her sat an aging white man with dirty, fading blond hair, his bloated body in poor fitting clothes sat astride a manual wheelchair, two legs sticking out from his belly and ending at the knees like fat tree stumps.
White man and black woman: The top rung and the bottom rung of the ladder of power. Both were dashed against the rocks of the municipal building by the waves of history, like human detritus . Perhaps she was a Muslim refugee from a war-torn country. Perhaps he was a forgotten veteran from a war-torn era.
As I descended on the moving escalator, I looked up and saw the wall surrounding the station rise into the wet night and blot out the sight of the vagabonds. The refugee sat death-still, eyes closed to life. The veteran looked vacantly at the constant rain.
What was there to say to them? "Good evening, Mr. Flotsam. Good evening, Ms. Jetsam."
On the train, watching the lights play on the passing tunnels, I noted a handful of people in the car, going home from a long workday in the modern world, staring vacantly at the air before them. One woman had her eyes closed, head nodding.
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