Daily Journal Entry #10

There's not much to him, I think. Just skin and bones really. I can see the hard lines of his bones and the notches of his ribs and spine when he bends over and unties his shoes. He stands on his old shaking legs, and teeters over the edge of the splash pad. He drops the black, scuffed Nikes into the streams of water and watches as the water fills up the cavity before spilling onto the pavement. He sits, muttering to himself and adjusting his scant belongings around him on the concrete bench in the center of the plaza. I wonder how long he sits out here everyday because his withered skin is worn and tan like leather. I sit and watch him for what feels like hours, days. His fuzzy white hair doesn't get any longer, it stays cropped-though unruly- around his scalp. He begins shaking after a while. It starts out as a slight sporadic tremor that swiftly moves through his body. But a few minutes later he begins quaking, his whole body trembling like a tea kettle about to boil over. He starts shouting, drifting streams of semi-coherent babble longer than the shadows in the five o'clock afternoon sun. No one says anything but the mothers sitting around the splash pad gather their children closer to them, faitnly speaking of false appointments, inexcusable errands, made-up tasks...all desperately trying to concoct reasons for their children to be carted away from the ticking time bomb that the barely lucid homeless man represents. The old man reaches a climax in his indistinguishable, audience-less speech...and stops. He falls silent, gazing in wonder down at the pavement where the early evening sun has cast the shadow of a church's steeple on the ground at his feet. He gets off the bench carefully, like it's made of glass and squats on the pavement. He reverently touches the tips of two fingers to the carful outline of the cross, it's shadow being cast from the shape on top of the steeple across the park. He glances up, his fingers still pressed to the rapidly cooling ground. He gazes up into the sun and crosses himself with his other hand before kissing his thumb and pressing it to the pavement where the shadow of the cross still lays. Then the old man gets up, takes his shoes from under the streams of water and begins to walk. he stoops to pick up his strewn belongings, but he doesn't bother putting on his dripping shoes. He just walks, and walks. Rounds the corner and disappears. I sit for a long time after he's gone, wondering what it is exactly that I've seen.