"Rag Man"

This started as an idea for something to post to Creepypasta, a short horror story.  It ended up being almost too long to be called a short story and more social statement than horror.  I'm not sure where it fits in this world, so I made this blog for it.  It will probably end up the dumping ground for more odds and ends of writing.  

I'm not sure that I really like the way this turned out, but I know I don't dislike it either.  I'd really like to hear constructive criticism on it.



THURSDAY:

There are a few things that I hate about living in a big city.  The first is that it’s dirty.  The wind carries trash along the streets like foam on unseen waves, piling against the curbs and the bases of walls.  In some neighborhoods, even the building themselves seem dirty.  I could spend a whole afternoon talking about it.  I guess though, my other two reasons are part of the same category, the filth of the city.

The second thing I hate is the crime.  There isn’t a single day that I haven’t turned on the news to a report of someone being murdered or raped.  Just this morning, the police found a woman six blocks from my building who had been stuffed in a dumpster and set on fire.  The woman who lived across the hall from me was sleeping two years ago when a man broke into her apartment.  Lucky for her, all he wanted was her valuables.  She was able to hide in the bathroom, under threat of being stabbed with the knife he carried on his belt, while he plundered anything of hers he could sell.  As bad as it was, it could have been so much worse. 

This city could be a vicious place, just to exist.   I had been mugged twice while walking home from work, once at gunpoint.  I was pickpocketed on the subway another time.  To be honest, I think that the third reason is mostly to blame for my first two complaints.

The third thing is the homeless.  Every time I try to walk down the street, I have to pass countless filthy vagrants, taking up the benches, begging for money, or generally cluttering the sidewalk.  I try to put my headphones in and pretend they’re not there; but I can still see them, and there’s always the smell – especially in the summer.  I can’t even look out the window without seeing them.  I don’t know why the city doesn’t do something more about them, considering all they do to destroy the living conditions.  It’s like the people in charge just want to turn their heads and leave it to working men like me to put up with the curse of vagrants.  Sometimes they’re worse than the rats.  Even in the best neighborhoods, they make the area look dirty and sick.  They are the parasitic colonies that are draining the life from the host, living off its resources while draining it of its vitality.  They were the ones robbing the working, like they had a right to our money.  They were the ones making the city look so run down and contaminated.  Without them, things would be so much better. 

I had my headphones in to ignore the beggars the first time I was mugged, of course, by another one of the bums.  All they wanted was to take and to try to blame us when they couldn’t take enough.  Then I was the one who had to work extra hours to make sure I could pay my bills.  I didn’t ask for handouts.  I worked for what I had. 

It was late when I got to head home from work that day.  The sun was already setting, and I stalked down the sidewalk, barely able to unclench my teeth.  Who the Hell did that old bastard think he was, telling me I had to stay to re-write that document?  He was the one who gave me the wrong materials in the beginning.  He should have been the one who was staying hours late to get it done on time.  Now I had to put up with the worst of the street traffic, and my evening was already half gone.  I dug in my bag for an apple that had been left over from my unfinished lunch.  I couldn’t wait to get home and get some real food in front of me and forget all about that office.

I was just about to take my first bite, when I felt something tug on my coat sleeve.  I swung around, glaring. 

“What do you…?”  The words died on my lips. 

An old man stood before me in grimy, tattered clothes that hung on his withered frame like bags.  His skin was weathered and red from the early winter’s winds.  He ran a hand through his ragged, grey beard and said, almost in a whisper; “Please sir, do you have any food that you could spare?”  He looked down as he spoke, shame filling his eyes. 

I stared down at the emaciated hand on my sleeve and then back up to meet his eyes.  “No,” I said, eyes narrowed.  “I work hard to take care of myself.  It’s not my job to take care of you too.” 

I started to pull away, but his hand clung to my sleeve.  I just wanted to get home and get my feet up; eat a sandwich.  Why couldn’t he understand? 

“Please, sir,” he said, voice shaking.  “I’m sorry to ask.  I just haven’t eaten… I don’t know how long it’s been.  I’m desperate.  I’ll take anything.  Anything.”

I yanked my sleeve free of his hand, and I could feel my voice rising.  “Leave me alone old man!  I already told you no.” 

I took a step and felt his hand grasp my sleeve again.  “I’m so weak.  I just need something, something to keep me alive.”  He paused and one raspy cough escaped his chest.  His voice was almost a whisper.  “Even that apple would be like a feast.  Please.  I beg of you.”

I turned to look at him again, fist clenching around the apple.  “Leave me the Hell alone!”  I could feel the anger twisting like a coil in my chest.  “You want this?”  I held up the apple, hand clenching hard enough to start crushing the skin of the fruit.  “Take it!”  I threw the apple as hard as I could into the traffic in the street next to us.  It smacked against the side of a passing sedan and bounced onto the asphalt, crushed almost immediately under the wheel of a truck.  I turned back to the man who stood gaping at me, eyes filling with tears.  He wilted noticeably in the fraction of a second that our eyes met.  I think that he had gotten my message. 

“Can I go now?”  I tried to say calmly, without much success.  I didn’t wait for an answer.  I stalked away, as quickly as I could without actually running.  The audacity of that man!  All they thought about was themselves! 

I rounded the corner and stopped suddenly.  Standing in the shadows next to the front stoop of my building was a man, dressed in rags.  His clothes looked as if they might fall apart if there was a stiff wind.  Cloth and old plastic shopping bags were tied over his feet, instead of shoes; and he held an old blanket over his head and shoulders, leaving his face in shadow.  I swallowed hard, not wanting to approach.  Damn it.  I just wanted to go home.  I took a deep breath and stepped forward, stuffing my hands in my coat pockets and staring straight ahead. 

The man didn’t move.  “Maybe he’ll let me past,” I thought, swallowing hard.  I was almost there.  I set my foot on the bottom step to my building.  Only three more stairs after this one…  He moved before I even saw it.  His hand wrapped around mine, palm to palm; and he squeezed.  I could feel something stick into my palm, like a pin or a needle.  I froze, my eyes widening, the breath catching in my throat.  The man’s chin lifted, and I could see a greyed smile cross his face. 

“I saw,” he said, in a thick, gravelly voice. 

I leaned back and yanked my hand away with all my strength.  To my surprise, he let it go; and I fell hard against the railing of the stairs.  He laughed, a rough, raspy sound, like sound of rusty metal dragging on the pavement.  I wanted to say something, but my throat felt frozen.  All I could do was to fling myself through the door of the building and run.  I dashed up the three flights of stairs that got me to my apartment, unwilling to even consider waiting for the elevator.  I only stopped running when I slammed to a stop at my door.  I fumbled in my pocket for the keys, but my hands were shaking too hard.  They fell to the floor, and I swore loudly.  I snatched them up and reached for the lock, only to drop them again.  The door across from mine slowly opened, and a young woman, my neighbor, peered out.

“Do you need help, Mr. Seville?” she asked, her brow creasing. 

“I’m fine,” I said, voice a little too high.  I grasped the keys, not wanting to admit that I lost to an inanimate object and jammed the key hard into the lock, twisting the knob.  I cast her glance over my shoulder and then slammed the door behind me. 

What did he do to me?  Was it an infected needle?  I stumbled into the bathroom; energy suddenly exhausted, and turned the sink of full blast.  I stuck my hand under the spray of water, while rummaging in the medicine cabinet with the other, bottles and razors clattering onto the floor and into the sink as I did.  I finally found a bottle of peroxide and lifted my hand, pouring the whole bottle over my palm.  There was a tiny puncture wound in the center of my palm, not even big enough to bleed.  I stared at the smooth, circular break in the skin; and I thought that it was still big enough to inject any kind bacteria or virus.  I felt like I couldn’t even blink, watching the peroxide bubble across my skin, wondering if I should go to the ER.  No.  A couple of years ago, a co-worker got jabbed by some junkie’s old needle while reaching for something he’d dropped.  He ended up getting put on some medication that made him feel sick all the time, and when they found out at work, they treated him like some kind of pariah.  Hell, I know I did.  I was being ridiculous.  It was probably just some dirty pin that he found on the street.  My worst fear should be an infection.  He was probably more soiled and contaminated than anything he might have stabbed me with.  I wasn’t going to catch some kind of junkie disease, like that loser from work.  I wasn’t going to let the people in the ER treat me like I had either.


“I’m not one of them,” I whispered.

I poured the last of the peroxide over my hand and threw the bottle onto the floor, pumping a palmful of antibacterial liquid soap into my hand and scrubbed at it.  I had no idea what to do, so I stood there, scrubbing, while I tried to come up with a plan.  The skin on my hand was turning red and the puncture and become ragged around the edges.  I forced myself to stop disinfecting my hand and took a few intentional deep breaths.  My nails had created several abrasions on my skin, almost forming a red “X” across my hand. 

I was panicking.  This was ridiculous.  I couldn’t let some filthy old man make me into a lunatic.  I turned the hot water down and let the warm water gently rinse the soap from my skin.  I would just take the necessary precautions and that would be the last power I would let that man – no, that thing have in my life.  I lifted the bottle of alcohol from the sink, where it had fallen and poured a generous amount onto the wound and then rummaged among the fallen supplies for one of those tiny, round adhesive bandages to keep it clean.  That was all I really needed.  That and I really needed to sleep.  I didn’t even care about dinner anymore.  I kicked a can of shaving cream out of the way as I walked out the door and headed to my bed. 

FRIDAY:

I woke up an hour before my alarm clock.  I was drenched in sweat, and my body ached all over.  I blinked several times, trying to clear my head.  I’d spent the night running from that damned rag man, as he chased me through my dreams, that tattered laugh echoing in my ears.  I looked at my hand, worried that the sweats might be from an infection, but the skin was a healthy pink, marred only from the scratches that I’d made, the puncture covered in a clean bandage.  I shivered and pulled the blanket closer around me.  It was moist from my sweat and failed to provide any physical comfort.  I hurt all over, like I’d spent the night sleeping on rocks.  I squeezed my eyes closed and considered calling in sick to work, but the darkness my eyes provided only brought more images of that man, grey teeth grinning at me. 

I slowly pulled myself from the bed.  My joints ached terribly, and my back throbbed almost in time with my heart.  The memory of my fall against the rail of the stairs murkily surfaced.  That must be it.  I stood up and lifted my shirt, angling my reflection in the mirror mounted on the inside of my opened closet door.  A black bruise, about an inch wide spread at an angle across my back.  I groaned.  I’m lucky that he didn’t kill me. 

I got ready for work as quickly as I could, but my body just felt beaten and weary.  I didn’t want to imagine suffering through work all day, feeling like this.  I don’t care what kind of freak that rag man was, if I saw him again, I was going to give him a beating. 

I rounded the corner, shoulders slumped, trying to get a pace up to get to work on time; but the morning was just not working in my favor.  Part of the sidewalk had been marked off, and the police and emergency personnel were swarming around something on the sidewalk.  An ambulance was parked aside the walkway, lights off, no reason to hurry.  I craned my neck to see what was happening, suddenly sorry for doing so, when my neck cramped.  I could see a pair of legs sticking out on the sidewalk from between the emergency workers.  They were covered in a pair of filthy pants, and the feet were covered in sneakers worn almost completely through.  I took a few steps forward, needing to see more.   I came close to the edge and leaned further in, until I could finally see the face of the man lying on the ground.  The wind chapped face with the ragged grey beard was impossible to forget.  It was the man who had harassed me last night about the handouts. 

Someone grabbed my coat sleeve suddenly, and I jumped, almost expecting to see him standing beside me.  A police officer stood beside me. 

“Move it along, sir, “she said.  Her voice was friendly but held the promise that she would move m along if I didn’t go on my own. 

“What happened?”  I asked?  I shivered as a chilled wind blew past us.  It made my muscles contract painfully. 

“Homeless man,” she said.  Her mouth formed a hard line as she said it.  “It looks like exposure.  It was well below zero last night.  Did you know him?”

Something in me reeled at her question.  “Of course not,” I said, my voice a little too harsh, a little too loud.  I don’t talk to those people.”

Her mouth opened to say something, her eyes looking at me hard.  I knew what she was going to say, and I was sick of that lecture.  I began to walk, not looking back at her, though I could feel her eyes boring into me.  I tried to my best to ignore it, focusing more on the increasing pain in my body.  It was so typical that the last action of that man on Earth would be to disrupt my life one more time. 

I pulled my scarf more closely around my throat and walked a little faster, worried about my arrival time at work now.  I’d never forgive him if he made me get yelled at too.  I stepped to cross the opening to an alleyway and glanced both ways to make sure there was no passing traffic.  As I looked at the alley entry on the opposite side of the street, I saw something in the shadows.  At first, it looked like a pile of trash bags, but then it moved.  I slowed my step to get a good look at it before I passed.  It changed shape as it moved, revealing itself to be a human figure, dressed in ragged clothing, with a filthy blanket wrapped around his head and shoulders.  I stared, my body tensing, my pain level increasing with the tension.  It was him.  I could barely see him in the shadows, but I knew… I slammed into something and turned to see a woman gaping at me, her coat covered in the coffee she must have been carrying. 

“Excuse me,” I mumbled, turning to look back at the alley.  It was empty.  I squeezed my hand, feeling the bandage on my palm. 

“Watch where you’re going, jerk!”  She started to yell at me as I started to walk off.  I ignored it.  I had bigger things to worry about. 

I was starving by the time I got home that night.  I’d eaten a large lunch that day, but it seemed like I just couldn’t get enough.  I’d been working too hard lately, working too many long hours.  I needed to take some time to relax before I made myself sick.  My back already felt like it was broken. 

I checked every alley on the way home but saw nothing out of the ordinary.  When I started to round the corner to go home, I held my breath, unsure if I could even deal with that horrible rag man, if he was waiting there again.  I peered around the corner cautiously.  There was no one there.  I quickly jogged to the steps of my building and yanked open the door before that situation could change. 

I tossed my bag on the sofa as I walked into the door of my apartment, and I headed for the kitchen.  I started to pull leftovers from the refrigerator, filling a plate to heaping.  I told myself that I was just making sure nothing spoiled, but the truth was that I couldn’t imagine eating any less.  I jammed it into the microwave and picked up an apple eat munch on while it heated. 

Just as I was about to take the first bite, my hand froze.  I had a sudden image of that apple bouncing into traffic and that bum lying on the pavement, both with their red skin.  I gritted my teeth audibly.  I didn’t want anything that reminded me of him.  He was ruining everything.  I grabbed the edge of the kitchen window and opened it with a quick motion, getting a blast of icy wind in my face.  I didn’t want it in my home.  I knew it was stupid, but it disgusted me.  I heaved the apple out the window, putting as much force behind it as I could.  It hit the building across from mine with a moist thunk and then bounced into the alley between the buildings.  I let my eyes follow the apple down to the concrete below, down to the rag man, standing in the square of light from my window.  The apple hit the ground right beside his wrapped feet.    He looked up at me, and a broad smile crossed his face. 

“Leave me alone!”  I screamed.  I grabbed the closest thing to me on the couther and cast it out the window at him.  My toaster sailed to the concrete below, shattering in an empty alley.  I looked up to see a worried face in the window across the alley.  I had no idea I had been so loud. 

Embarrassed and angry, I yelled, “What are you looking at?”  I slammed the window before the person could react.  I wasn’t some kind of a spectacle.  That rag man was provoking me to act like one, and I was stupid enough to play his game.  I was better than this.  I snatched the plate out of the microwave and began eating before I could sit down. 

SATURDAY:

I woke before dawn.  I hurt all over, and I was starving.  I felt so tired and weak, and I struggled to sit up.  I finally sat on the side of the bed, feet on the thick carpet of my bedroom, feeling like they were resting on jagged gravel.  I looked at my hand and peeled away the bandage.  My hand looked healthy.  The puncture wound was almost closed.  I wondered if there could have been some kind of virus that he might have given me.  Who was I kidding?  That dirty bastard was one walking pile of filth.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was some kind of plague carrier.  Maybe I should go to the hospital. 

I closed my eyes.  I felt too sick.  How could someone feel too sick to go to the hospital?  How could I still be hungry when I felt this bad?  Maybe I would feel better after a hot bath and breakfast.  I stood slowly, and I felt my pajama pants slip down on my hips.  Confused, I looked down.  They looked like they were far too big.  That couldn’t be right.  They fit when I put them on last night.  I looked at myself in the mirror and went cold.  I had always been slim but muscled, well-toned from the gym.  I stared at my reflection today and found it difficult to believe that it was really me.  I waved a hand experimentally at my emaciated form, and it waved back at me.  I ran a hand through my hair.  It felt as limp and dried as it looked in my reflection.  My lips stung as I ran my tongue along the chapped skin and the cracked corners.   What was wrong with me?  This couldn’t be possible in just a night. 

I walked to the bathroom, slowly and painfully, holding onto my pants to keep them from slipping down.  I started the tub filling with the hottest water I could stand and walked to the kitchen, embarrassed that I couldn’t wait until after my bath to eat.  I was shriveling almost before my eyes, and all I could think about was when I was going to get my next meal.  I filled a large bowl with whatever I could find ready in the kitchen and walked back to the bathroom.  I stripped and climbed into the tub, almost crying as I sat in the water, eating as quickly as I could.  My body felt so desperate for the comfort of the hot water and the food filling its stomach that I shook with every movement.  I could only be grateful that no one would see me like this.  I couldn’t stand the humiliation.  I was turning into some kind of a freak, thanks that horrible man.  Could I even call him a man?  He was vermin.  They were all vermin. 

The food ran out too fast, and I wished that had brought more.  I was so hungry.  My stomach knotted and growled as if I hadn’t eaten in days.  I sunk down in the water, until it covered all but my head.  It seemed to be easing the pain a small amount, but it was by such a small amount that I wondered if it was anything more than a placebo effect.  I was so tired.  I wanted to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but I knew I would slip under the water if I did.  I felt so weak that I wondered if I would even be able to wake up in time if I did start to drown. 

I relaxed in the tub, until the water began to cool.   I pulled myself out of the tub and slipped on my robe.  It was loose and baggy on my overly thin body, but the belt held it close.  I returned to the kitchen and grabbed a cartoon of orange juice and a box of dry cereal, before returning to my bed.  I sat huddled in the blankets, my body aching so fiercely that tears began to form in my eyes, while drinking the juice and eating handfuls of cereal, until I fell gratefully to sleep. 

When I woke, I was startled to see that the sun had already set.  I turned over, bones aching, and reached for the box of cereal that was lost somewhere in the blankets.  My breath caught in my throat as I saw the rag man standing beside my bed, close enough that I could smell the stench of the street rolling off him, see the detail of the ragged fabric that wrapped around him.  He smiled at me and chuckled, that horrible scraping sound. 

“How do you feel?”  He asked.  His voice was dry and raspy, like dead leaves scuttling across the sidewalks on a cold autumn night.  He chuckled more, and I opened my mouth to scream. 

I awoke in a jolt, like my body had been hit with an electric charge.  I was lying on my bed, the murky light of the setting sun filling the room, the cereal box lying across my chest.  I looked around the room, knowing I was alone but needing to check.  I struggled to sit up, letting the cereal spill into the blankets beside me.  I felt worse than I had been when I had gone to sleep.  The room was freezing.  I sighed.  The central heat must have broken down.  As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. 

I got up, pulling the blankets with me, wrapping them around myself.  I headed to the dresser and pulled a set of gym clothes out of the drawers and dressed quickly.  The pants were even looser now but held on by the drawstring, with the robe over it, blankets wrapped on top of everything, I walked to the living room.  I checked the thermostat.  It read seventy-eight degrees.  Ridiculous.  The whole system was broken.  I’d call the landlord when I felt a little better able to deal with it.  I grabbed a loaf of bread, a carton of milk, and a block of cheese from the kitchen and plopped in front of the small gas fireplace in the living room and lit the fire. 

The fire bloomed, but I could barely feel any heat from it.  This virus – whatever it was --  was out of control.  I would go to the hospital in the morning.  I shivered, my muscles aching with the stimulation.  I lay back against the sofa, eating the cheese and bread between gulps of milk.  Why did the milk have to be so cold?  I had finished almost half the loaf and most of the cheese before I passed out into sleep again.  I wondered if I would live to make it to the hospital in the morning.  I didn’t care.  I felt so weak. 

SUNDAY:

I awoke in the full dark of night, the room lit in an orange glow from the fire.  I felt too weak to even stand.  I felt a presence, and my head rolled to the side to look at the window.  The rag man stood outside, looking at me with a leering grin.  I felt too bad to even be afraid.  I blinked slowly.  When I opened my eyes, he was predictably gone.  It only vaguely passed through my thoughts that I lived on the third floor and had no fire escape there for someone to stand on. 

He had me.  I smiled bitterly.  So this was his revenge.  He’d made me one of them.  I was covered in layers of sweat from the last two days of sickness.  I was dirty and disgusting, starving and cold, weak and hurting.  I was little more than the vermin on the street outside.  What had he used to infect me?  My brain felt like it was filled with fog.  I needed to go to the hospital, but how?  I looked at the phone and knew there was something I should do.  I should call for help, but who would I call?  I was so cold, so hungry.  I could barely think. 

I lifted myself slowly from the floor, pulling myself up using the sofa.  I wrapped the blankets tightly around myself and covered my head to try to protect my face and throat from the cold.  I stumbled to the front door and shuffled into the hallway.  I had to get some help.  I wasn’t sure where I was going.  My vision blurred, and my thoughts moved more slowly than my labored walk. 

The hallway looked so much longer than before.  It was too bright to my sensitive eyes.  I pulled the blanket further forward on my head to shield my face. 

I crossed the hallway and let my palm fall with a thump against the door a few times, leaving my arm shaking.  My neighbor had always been kind.  She would help.  She’d always liked me, and she’d always looked for chances to help me or show she was useful.  A spark of hope jumped inside my chest when the door began to open. 

My neighbor was a slight woman, pale with thin blonde hair.  She’d become more fragile and pale, since the burglary of her apartment a few years ago.  I can only blame her lingering fear for her reaction.  When she opened the door, her eyes went wide with fear. 

“What do you want?”  She yelled more than asked. 

I tried to speak, but my throat was so dry and raspy that I could barely release a croak.  I coughed a little and reached toward her arm.  She only needed to see it was me.  She recoiled and slammed the door.  I could hear her fastening locks on the other side as soon as it closed. 


“Get away, or I’ll call the police!”  She cried.  “Just get out of here!”

I considered knocking again, but she wasn’t going to help.  I made a mental note to remind her of all of this when I was better.  Would I be better? 

I wasn’t sure what to do.  I could either go back into my frigid wasteland of an apartment and wait to die, or I could go in search of help outside the building.  I should always go out fighting, I thought.  I shambled further down the hall. 

I’m not really sure how I found my way to the elevator or down to the lobby, but it felt like it took me days to do it.  The pain in my legs and feet had become excruciating, and my arms were almost too tired to hold my blankets around me anymore.  Absurdly, I wished that I had brought something to eat with me. 

I shuffled off the elevator and toward the front door.  One of the other tenants was coming in the door as I approached.  It must have been late, because he never came in until the bars were closing.  He smelled like cigarettes and vodka and had a big grin on his face, as he led a young woman in the door with him.  Then he saw me.  I started to speak, but he held up a hand to keep me at bay. 

“Sorry, buddy,” he said.  “This isn’t that kind of building.  How about you just head out and get yourself a cot at the shelter, huh?”  He flipped a twenty dollar bill from his sleeve and widened his grin.  “I’ll even pay for you to take a cab.” 

He pressed the money into my palm and walked around me, escorting his companion.  I started to object, but I could tell from the set of his shoulders that he had already dismissed me.  He wasn’t going to turn around. 

I opened the door of the apartment building and nearly sobbed as the rush of frozen air hit me.  I wasn’t sure how much further I could walk.  I staggered and fell in a tumble down the stairs, landing on the sidewalk on my already bruised back.  I lay there for a few moments, unable to stand again.  I could hear the sound of traffic just around the corner.  All I needed was to find someone.  A pedestrian, a police officer, a cab… Hell, even one of those vagrants might show themselves useful for once.  I just needed one person to help me. 

I gathered the last of my energy and pulled myself to my feet.  It was only a few dozen feet, but it felt like a death march worse than any portrayed in history.  Every step made the path seem to stretch by two more, and the wind buffeted me like a flimsy piece of paper; but I finally made it.  I rounded the corner, holding onto the wall for support, and I was overjoyed to see people.  There were only a few, but I only needed one.  I fell forward, letting my own weight be my momentum and grabbed the sleeve of one of the passing pedestrians.  He turned as if I’d struck him.

“Please,” I rasped.  “Help me.” 

“Get the Hell off me!”  He yelled and shoved me away from him, hard. 

I swayed and fell to my knees.  I lifted a hand out to the others that passed, but they acted as if I was invisible.  I strained to my feet one last time, before something punched me in the face.   It took me a moment to realize that I had collapsed and that something had been the pavement.  My blankets had spilled from my shoulders and lay in a pool beside me, leaving me exposed to the elements.  The frozen pavement burned my flesh like a hot iron, but I had no strength to turn.  My muscles no longer responded to my command.  No one was going to help.  This was it.  I was dying. 

I wished that I had had the will to struggle or to even weep at my misfortune, but all I could do was lie there on stomach, face turned, with a cheek pressed to the flame of cold coming from the sidewalk, exposed to all who passed, and wait for death to come.   As I lay there, I sensed the approach of someone.  I could barely move my head, but I knew him when I saw his feet.  They were wrapped with old cloth and tied with worn cord.  Several layers of plastic shopping bags had been tied over the cloth to make them waterproof. 

He was here to gloat, to laugh as I passed from this world, to tell me how much I deserved this.  Maybe I did.  If I really thought about it, what I did to that man over the apple wasn’t the worst thing that I’d done.  It wasn’t even that unusual.  I took a few shallow breaths, trying to get the air to say something, before he could say something condemning or laugh at my plight.  Instead, he squatted down beside me and looked at my face.  I couldn’t see his face, hidden as it was in the shadow of his rags; but I could tell that he was no longer smiling.  He reached beside me and gathered the blankets that had fallen aside me and began to pull them around me, tucking them in as securely as he could.  They felt warm, comforting.  I finally gathered enough air to speak. 

“Why?”  I asked.  He knew as well as I that I was not asking why he had cursed me. 

“Because,” he said his voice a heavy whisper.  “No one deserves to die alone.”  With that, he lifted a hand that was blackened with dirt and calloused and rough like the concrete on which I lay, and he gently closed my eyes.