When the daylight has faded

The drifter (#choice)

Paul was born on a rainy winter's day. His childhood was tough, living in a council house with his single mother and seven younger half-siblings. Despite the small army of men that had been involved in the creation of his family, grown men were a rarity in Paul's household, the same as food and books. Alcohol and cigarettes, on the other hand, were plentiful.

Paul was a drifter, going wherever the current would take him. By the time he was sixteen, he had been expelled from four different schools and was still unable to read or write.

When his mother booted him out to reduce the number of mouths to feed, he drifted from doorway to bridge to doorway, subsisting on alcohol and cigarettes, the very objects he had detested so much in his mother's household. Now they gave him comfort.

A few years into his street life, he developed pneumonia. In spite of his protestations, a bridge acquaintance phoned an ambulance which took him to hospital. There he had his first shower in years and regular meals but was otherwise confined to a bed until he was released back into the wild of the concrete jungle of his hometown.

Still smelling fresh from the hospital and with his hair trimmed, he tried to reconnect with his siblings but found that three had overdosed and the rest had no desire to be reminded of their bleak childhood. Mother had pickled her brain cells and didn't remember who Paul was.

Back underneath his bridge, he passed the time watching the weather until a street worker found him and made Paul spend his nights at a homeless shelter and his days learning how to read and write.

Paul did as he was told but the literacy remained hidden behind an impenetrable steel wall for him.

The street worker found a job for his protégé instead, mowing the lawn for the elderly three times a week.

Paul followed the street worker's directions but a bad back finished this new career path quickly.

After a particularly depressing day of trying to make people part with their small change to fund his survival for another day, he pulled his meagre belongings into a shop entrance to settle down for the night, only to find the space already taken.

Craving a cigarette and starving, he was looking for another wind-sheltered spot when the female shelter thief made space for him in exchange for physical intimacy.

Paul did not fall in love with the lady without front teeth but enjoyed her company until she was freed from this mortal coil in the station public toilets with a needle still sticking in her arm.

About a year later, Paul's own health started to deteriorate. Soon he found himself in a hospital. The doctor explained to him that he had two choices, an operation to remove the tumor in his brain, which held the risk of causing severe balance and mobility issues, or doing nothing and accepting his fate.

Paul looked at the doctor in confusion.

"You choose!" he finally said.