Resurfaced.
And felt a sense of peace.
What I've done some might think it be wrong, but please.
Time will tell.
I feel at ease.
And although a heavy crown now sits upon my head, I feel unburdened and freed.
Resurfaced.
In a bar of all places.
In a familiar place.
Among familiar faces.
Among friends, who don't have much but knew how to celebrate.
Miami had been for me a special place.
After the loss of wife and kids,
when I was at my lowest,
suicidal and all but dead,
this town granted me new life and prospect.
And much needed and welcomed friends.
So naturally it was the one place I would pay visit again.
First time I sat in that bar,
many could see and they knew it,
they could smell it.
I was vermin among men.
Today I sit quietly among them,
long-haired,
cloaked in mustache and full beard,
unrecognizable to them.
I appear normal but they do not know
I am god among men.
Before this,
the friends I met,
their next meal came from the garbage.
They the Homeless.
When you have nothing the ones who give you everything, those are your true friends!
At that time, the bar members threw me out of the bar,
and into the streets.
Like they would garbage, they did me.
A helping hand reached out, helped me up
and offered a meal.
Half of half of a sandwich from Burger King is what she gave me.
She clothed me, fed me,
gave me a cardboard box in which to sleep.
Comforted me each night when I cried and weeped.
And it wasn't just her.
There were others.
Several others.
For the homeless on our streets are many.
Resurfaced in Miami.
I remembered them.
But they did not recognize me.
"Vermin," these bar members could no longer see.
I sat there.
Ordered myself a drink.
The sports channel was on, I watched some TV.
The waitress was still there.
She did not remember me.
I appeared,
differently.
This time she was friendly.
Suddenly, crowds ran out the bar.
Commotion in the alley.
The homeless were fighting for a meal.
Broke my heart to see.
Life grew much harder for them,
in my absence.
The people were no longer as generous.
A recession.
No half sandwiches were thrown in the garbage.
No more coins in the cup to help the homeless.
They became most desperate, the Homeless.
And fought amongst themselves for everything.
As I sat there in the bar and looked at them through the wall, the waitress returned to me,
"Another?"
Though I did not hear her.
I was still trying to decide whether I should be indifferent or something other.
Until I saw a face I remembered.
It was my old friend who gave me shelter.
She attempted to intervene and was hit so hard in the head she died at the scene.
I at once leapt to my feet, angrily.
To many she was just a homeless person.
To me, she was the reason.
She gave me the means to get up and carry on.
She was the one who convinced me:
"Life goes on."
One day you're down,
the next you're up.
Sometimes it's good,
most times it's not.
But "Life, it goes on."
"It's a struggle for most of us.
But we must pick ourselves up,
do our very best and carry on."
She was my Friend.
I made the CHOICE I made because I came to understand humanity is a Crutch.
Our humanity, in many ways, is a disability.
Some deserve it, surely! Others not.
As my friend laid there dead, she reminded me I am hardly human.
And to stop thinking in human terms.
In her dead state she reminded me by my very strong will the Dead can wake.
I had obviously never attempted it.
Before that second, never even thought about it.
Newly crowned, there was no guide book detailing it.
"My powers are not limitless?"
But you see, that was the crutch, my humanity, talking to me.
My Friend, even in death she helps me.
What would be impossible for a human being is now within the very nature of me.
It was almost shocking how it was accomplished so easily.
I did not even need to speak.
Only a strong will and a thought and my dear friend was Freed.
And to the crematorium there was one less homeless to feed.
Her eyes opened, the light blinding, her hand blocking.
And when she could clearly see she looked at me...... "David?"
"Yes, it's me."
