My rusty spoon clanks as I try to get another morsel from my sardine can. I feel my spoon hit the can but I hear no sound of sardine juice. I am hungry. I drop my can of sardines and lick my spoon clean. I place my spoon in the bottom left pocket of my old brown coat. I like my coat, it keeps me warm. The cat with orange strips on top of my box lets out a meow. It jumps off my box and lands quietly on the pavement. I’m too tired to have another argument with that cat. I rub my gloves on my old brown coat and try to stand up. I look up at the sky and breathe in the foul air that no man ever wants to inhale, but with all that I have gone through, I no longer think of myself as one of them, one of their equals. I don’t want to cry anymore; crying is for those who can afford pity; I can’t even afford attention.
Looking down on the cat wrapping itself around my leg, I try to shake it off, but these old bones have been too tired for too long to do that. I feel a drop of water trickle on my shoulder. I think it’s raining but my face isn’t wet, my hair, white as clouds that used to amuse me back in the day, is as dry as a rock deep in a cave in the middle of nowhere. It isn’t raining; it’s just that same tube leaking stuff on me every day. I try to find my piece of cloth, my old, ragged piece of cloth. Looking down, I see a can of sardines on the ground. What person in his right mind would throw away a perfectly good can of sardines? I try to bend over to get it as I reach for my spoon. I think my luck is turning for the better.
My hands come in contact with the can. My hands are not as strong as they used to be, even though back then, my hands would not be considered strong by the kids that I used to play with. What were their names? Past is past. Although I wish I could have gone to school with them longer. But old men like me do not need these thoughts. Back when I was a child, I used to see my father as something that was little. I did not want to be the son of the farmer; I wanted to be someone else, someone better than my father and my brothers, and all my ancestors who were nothing more than lowly farmer. Damn it; stop thinking these things you fool! I think I’ve gone mad.
As my hands get a grip on the sardine can and pick it up, I close my eyes thanking whatever supernatural power looking after me, I place my spoon inside the can, but my spoon clanks with the can; it is empty. Come to think of it, I think I had this can of sardines for breakfast. I try to hold back tears that are not there. I drop the can, lick my spoon clean, and place my spoon back at my bottom left pocket. I’m hungry. I feel like I did not eat breakfast at all. I lean back against the walls of the alley that I call home. It is amazing how someone like me who had no past, has nothing now, and most likely will have nothing tomorrow has survived in a society where the rich get everything and the poor are nothing more than dust who hope to become homes for plants yet settle for worms. In my quest to become something more, I have become something less than a lowly farmer. I am a beggar! I am nothing! I fall to the ground and weep as tears have come back from the depths of my heart.
I look in front of me and see a can of sardines.
