The man with nowhere to go

He walked down the endless avenues of his city. He caught glimpses of happiness and sadness from the people worth watching. Trudging along, he could smell the food of his childhood being sold to the kids who’d walk his same path. The air smelled of gasoline, and the man had to wonder if he could have lived a few more moments without it in the air. He heard the sounds of the city streets he used to pay no mind to, and he walked the trail his old friends used to walk. He longed to walk with them again, to thank them. Most were gone now, in a better place they say. He caught up with the alley where he smoked his first cigarette. His friend had sneaked one out  of his mother’s purse and urged him to try it. He  was the only one who didn’t cough. Boy, was he proud at the time, unaware of how to smoke a cigarette, blowing out through the cigarette as suave as he could. Walking past it, he saw  the same blue sky from so many years ago, and it saw through the man’s eyes and assured him with its clockwork. The street vendors he had surpassed in age some time ago watched him with cautious eyes, entertaining the thought of a different future for themselves as he walked by. The young people who watched him felt pity: the adults felt fear. He took a seat on the old plastic chair that sat in a crevice of the city. Through here, at the intersection of light and shadow, he could for brief moments, appreciate  the people who walked past his four foot frame. The villains and heros, artists and academics, thinkers and moneymakers, living in their houses of cards. A gust of wind may spark their aspirations, rebirth them, until the wind’s effects subside and the only viable action is to carefully lift a card. Having felt what it is like to have nothing to lose, the children walking by go through the lesser pain of starting over. He wondered about them turning his way, seeing into the future, seeing themselves in the man’s eyes and understanding where everything would lead. He wondered if this tool  would be buried, knowing the answer. The three walls surrounding him grew closer, and the old man sat. The people walked, the sun dripped down. His shadowy crevice of the city grew cold. Children hopped past. Above all else, the sky watched: assuring them with its clockwork.