Sir Sir Please Sir

Vernie is an invisible woman. She knows this but she tries anyway. “Sir! Sir! Please sir!” He does not glance back. Instead takes out his cell phone. Walks more quickly, afraid of her. Afraid she will chase him. Difficult to do in her wheelchair. She sits back and takes another breath. Breathing in the cold air that will eventually kill her. The shelters are all full of others. She does not want to take a bed from a baby anyway. She is an old woman. She would like to die. She would welcome it. She has been on the streets for six years now. Maybe seven. It is hard to count without a calendar. Here comes a young lady. Bouncing as she walks. Large smile. “Hey!” Vernie yells, “Can you give me a dollar? A quarter? Anything?” The young lady’s smile slams from her face. She glares at her. “You people annoy me!” she says! She walks harder. No longer smiling. A day on the street. Or a week. Or a month or a lifetime. Vernie thinks about her assignment. To try and get two dollars from the Christians. She knows both of these people go to church. She saw it before she was sent. She shudders at how pious they are in the church in front of others Yet how little soul they have for the unfortunates. “Pull me up!” she says to her angel committee. “I have seen enough”, for she truly had.