The Aimless Wanderer

The lights of the city reflecting from the aqueous pitch, pavements in a kaleidoscope of colours create a melancholy ambience for the few who venture within. The city is transformed as the animated bustle of people, seemingly with purpose, abandon the streets to their suburban abodes, leaving a nugatory melting pot of the "Ill at ease" to pursue or solicit rudimentary shelter to respite their weary frames. The man is homeless....... To the city streets he is confined, incarcerated by their invisible partition that circumscribe his ability to breach the tenticaled alleys and lanes. For buzzing in his mind, "I'm not aloud" echoes through his sub conscience cerebrations. Involuntarily his legs move his ageless body, one foot in front of the other in timeless motion like a driverless carriage aimlessly meandering through the city thoroughfares. He sits to repose on a lichen encrusted slab that has entreated a myriad of his ilk for generations past and assuredly for many more to traverse. For the briefest moment the fog that clouds his mind is pushed aside by a gentle puff of memory as he is transported to a place where children's laughter fills the room and a woman sitting at a dining table, her auburn hair comfortably resting on her slender shoulders as she gazes admiringly at... Then thunderclouds rush over him like a tidal wave to the sound of, "Move you filthy wino", he scurries off as the fog settles back into its occupation. Lost within the multitude of human quiddity, like the leaves of a plane tree aquiescing to the winds dominating gusts. He is swept along the tide of life, existing but never living, obedient to every buckle and wrench, never adapting to the changing seasons, accepting feeling of cold and heat with equal passiveness. The drum of life ever beating, yet his march is incessantly out of step.