A change in the weather; a exchange of winter’s icy teeth
for the gentle caress of spring. The
wind will coax the ice from the ground and chase it to the clouds. Spring will bring rain.
His home is damp; the walls streaked with water. Today he will shed his home; trade it in for
a new one as easily as a hermit crab exchanges shells.
He drags the box to the dumpster behind the Giant Eagle and
throws it in. He spies a bunch of
bananas, brown in spots, but edible. He smiles:
Breakfast is served.
Three months into this experiment, he’s not sure how long he
can continue.
A woman drives up in a shiny red Volvo. She pulls up beside him, puts her window down
a quarter inch. Diamonds glitter upon
her ears and wrists. A fur coils about
her neck. “How can you possibly live
that way?” Her smile is vapid.
He shrugs. He often
wonders that himself. He thinks of his
bank account; his luxury car; his expensive clothing, five miles away. His net worth far exceeds this woman’s.
He hated that life.
She looks at the bananas tucked beneath his arm. “Are you going to eat those?”
He nods.
She wrinkles her nose and takes a sip of her takeout coffee. “That’s absolutely wretched.”
“Funny,” he replies, nodding at her coffee. “I was about to say the same thing to you.”
He chucks a banana peel into the dumpster, grabs a new box
and heads for the bridge.
On the way, he passes Leo, homeless for three days; no
health insurance; hungry.
He takes a crumpled ten dollar bill from his pocket and
hands it over.
Leo protests. “You
keep it, honey. I know you ain’t got
much neither.”
“I insist.” He smiles
and heads for the bridge where he will arrange a new home, of sorts.
And this life he
knows, is worth much more than the life he left.
Labels: fiction Trifecta Writing Challenge