Words circle a well.
This man sat low inside the doorway and leaned against the glass wall. There are strange panes. Those windows that span a whole story, a kind of nothingness that somehow holds against the weight. I was walking past him to the bank machine. Next to him was a beaten cane and an open sack, packed with things I could not see, but atop them was a half-eaten slice of pizza on a greased paper plate. I nodded, and he looked out the doorway, and on my way out I nodded again.
"Cold out there," he said. "I'm not going out there. Hell, I'm waiting for the bus, I've been waiting for an hour, hour, hour and a half. You seen the bus?"
This city seems to run only a few buses in the night, with less people wanting to move around.
"I can't walk in this. This city wants me to die, but I won't. Ah, I don't know, this city is always making me wait. I've been pushed right out of here. First it was all these Indians, and now there's rich people everywhere tearing everything down and telling me it's not mine.
He coughed, the sound of a long, snaking string being hurled from his lungs.
"Me and my sister, you know, we own half of this city. We used to own everything from here up to the railroad, the station, and then north. That's all ours, and they're all acting like it isn't. And we're going to get it back. She's got kids now, and the kids are going to get it back for us too. I've been waiting years now."
He swore and muttered. I told him I hoped his bus would come soon.
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