Chapter 4:

Homeless person in a rather bothered mood

Blind Man in the Broken World


Are you sure that was the best course of action? I ran the numbers and there was at least 5.7-

Of course! We may have lost one but we also got rid of a serious thorn in our side

Hmm... you may be right about that but how can we be sure the merits will out way the loss?

Relax relax! Didn't Three already tell you that we needed her gone?

Thre-, They did say that but they did that without even consulting us first.

If Three said it was fine then there's no need to even waste a second worrying about it.

... Are you sure they can be trusted?

No, but we don't have a choice but to trust them.

I hope you two weren't having a meeting without me?

-+++-

A splash of cold gently taps my cheek, then my leg and arm are hit too. Soon my entire body is being pelted with the the cold little droplets making an involuntary shiver run through my entire body. I drowsily open my eyes, squinting almost immediately as a ray of sunshine nearly blinds me. Carefully this time, I look through the gaps in my fingers at the sky above which is filled with the remnants of what may have been a very large storm. All that remains now are a few grey clouds occasionally depositing a bit of the remaining rain onto the ground.

After a few moments of staring at the sky I realized that I didn't know where I was, nor did I remember how I had gotten there. Before I had a chance to look around the scent from a near by dumpster infiltrated my nostrils, with a loud gag followed by a not insignificant amount of coughing, I sprung to my feet and backed as far away as I could get from the dumpster. After I reached a safe distance where I wouldn't have to worry about dying from asphyxiation, I noticed three important things.
1: I had just backed out of an alleyway onto the sidewalk.
2: I had been lying face up in a filthy alley way next to a rancid smelling dumpster.
3: Most importantly, I had been lying face up in the dirty rancid smelling alleyway with no. Cloths. On.

I decided that the strategic option in this situation would be to open up peace talks with the dumpster and ask for asylum on its border, in other words, I sprinted into the alleyway and crouched behind the dumpster; hoping to god that no one had seen me. I slowly peeked my head out from behind the dumpster to see if any one had stopped on the other side of the street to ogle at the naked person sleeping in the alleyway. Just to be safe I checked the other end of the alley to, but the only thing that could've saw me there was a rat preoccupied with an overlarge slice of pizza.

Looking for anything that could qualify as a piece of clothing revealed only one, possibly predictable option. Lying in a crumpled damp heap next to the dumpster was a large black, and hopefully empty, garbage bag. After poking it a couple times to make sure there wasn't anything alive in the bag, I picked it up and tore holes for my head and arms in it. I held the bag between my thumb and pointer finger in front of my naked and increasingly cold body, debating whether to look for an article of clothing that wasn't found next to the contender for worlds smelliest dumpster. Swallowing my pride, I quickly slipped the bag over my head, taking the jump into cold water approach.

As soon as I popped my head out of the top of the bag and pushed my arms through the sides, I noticed some very desirable features, such as: Not being filled with smelly garbage, covering from my neck to my knees in just one piece of clothing!, and having a price tag just short of free coming in at all of my pride. Now wearing the wet garbage bag, I looked like a down on their luck homeless person rather than a victim of a very greedy mugger. That title wasn't necessarily wrong as my luck had been pretty bad so far and I had no idea where my home was. Putting all of that aside for now, there was a much more pressing issue than figuring out which of the hundreds of identical apartment buildings I called home, food!

+++

After walking around what I assumed was a city for upwards of ten minutes, I still hadn't gotten any closer to finding any food or any one who could sell it to me, although since I had no money I wasn't clear on how I would pay for it. As I reached the fifth empty crosswalk a small frown formed on my face, not from the chilly breeze that was making my legs shiver, or the fact that I may have to cover my order with just I.O.U's but because I hadn't seen a single person anywhere. Sure there had been a few cats parked on the sides of the streets but they were all empty, apart from whatever trinkets and personal belongings their owners had left in them. I looked at the tall buildings that toward far above me, squinting to see if I could spot any lights coming from any of the windows. Darkened window after darkened window, no matter where I looked up and down the street there wasn't a single light on, granted it was daytime but even the rooms that had their curtains drawn on the windows didn't have any lights on.
"Well there has to be someone left in this city who could serve me some good food!" I yell, cupping my hands around my mouth in hopes that someone would pop open a door or open a window and tell me to shut up. But the only answer to my call is the increasingly quieter echo it creates as it bounces around the empty streets, dying out after a few seconds leaving me right back in the same silence I was stuck in before.

I couldn't come up with an explanation to where all the people could have gone and since worrying about it wasn't going to fill the great hunger I was feeling at the present moment, I decided to push the mystery of the missing city folk to the back of my mind and resume my hunt for some food.

After walking for many blocks, I finally came upon a Chinese restaurant with darkened windows and a big "Closed" sign on the front door. Hoping that the last employee on duty had disappeared with everyone else before they got a chance to lock the front door, I grabbed the handle with both hands and pulled as hard as I could.
Herrgh! Haaaaaa! Creek
"Its working! Of course, there's no way that it would be locked! It just needed a little elbow gr-PING!" the handle suddenly gives way and shoots away from the door, tumbling out of my grasp and taking me with it. With a mix of metallic clangs and shouts of pain, me and the handle tumble to the sidewalk, leaving me with a few cuts and bruises and no food to show for it.
"My trash bag is ripped, my stomach is empty, and my temper, is on its last legs." placing one hand on my knee I push myself back to my feet, pick of the metal door handle and turn my hunger filled rage towards the door.
"Normally, I wouldn't damage someone else's property, I would've even left and gone to find another restaurant to pillag-, find food, but you just had to burn the final shreds of my patience. Now, you will be shown no mercy." brandishing the door handle like a small club I charged the wooden door and began smashing through it with the handle. Pieces of the door caved inward until I could see the welcome mat shining through one of the holes in the door brighter than any light.

Once the door had numerous holes in it, I carefully reached through one of the holes near where the handle was, found the lock, turned it, and slowly pulled the door outwards, as tears began to form in my eyes. I had finally done it, after all I had been through I had finally found the food that I had been looking fo-. My eyes, filed to the brim with tears, noticed a plain paper sign taped to a wall right in front of the door.
"Indefinitely closed because of roach infestation." the handle fell from my hands and clanged against the ground. I fell to my knees and looked towards the blue sky with tears streaming from my eyes.
"DAMMMMMMMMMIT!"