Long hair, hipster beard, heavy black coat and scuffed work boots.
In another life he could be making craft beer or working in an ad agency.
This life only occupies about 200 metres.
He spends his nights in the doorway of a mobile phone shop, the garish lights of the looping commercials flogging the latest and greatest smart phones providing an interesting nightlight.
Morning. He rolls up his bedding, carefully and methodically arranges that and his life in a shopping trolley and slowly and rather purposely wheels it just up the road to his bus stop.
To the edge of his world. The buggered wheel of the trolley a metaphor.
He parks at his bus stop all day, no need / want to catch one, staring into space, occasionally wandering off somewhere – not too far in case somebody knocks his stuff off, then back to his
bus stop then the mobile phone shop. Repeat.
I don’t know his name, I see him out of my office window as he carries out his daily ritual.
And I carry out mine.
He looks about mid-forties, but who knows? It’s hard to tell. He’s probably lived a few lifetimes.
He’s homeless and harmless.
He doesn’t hassle anyone for money, doesn’t randomly yell out expletives or even quote Shakespeare like a character I encountered in the Sydney CBD years ago. He just quietly goes about his business as everyone goes about theirs, pretending he doesn’t exist.
He’s homeless and faceless.
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He could be you, he could be me. Depends how the cards fall.
I saw him at his bus stop the other day, I nodded and sort-of-smiled, didn’t want to freak him out. He nodded and sort-of-smiled back, didn’t want to freak me out.
Everyone avoids him, nobody sits at the bus stop — they stand — willing the bus to arrive
to take them away from him. Who knows? Maybe he prefers it that way.
We all have a story. What’s his? Why is his life just 200 metres?
He could be you, he could be me.
I made a call, not to complain, just to check if he’s doing ok. They know him, they’ve had him
in hostels, but he lives by his own rules. They keep an eye on him. That’s the main thing.
I met a man who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today…
©Steve Williams 2016
*This piece also appeared in The Huffington Post Australia: Homeless And Faceless, Mr Cellophane