The yellow sun exploded over the
skyscrapers on a cloudless, Wednesday morning. Kyle lay wrapped in a matted,
pink blanket which he found lying discarded next to a trashcan. It still held
that funky reek of vomit and beer, but not as overpowering as the smell of
dried feces and stale urine which permeated the alleyway he slept the previous
night.
Kyle silently squinted, the sun rays bathed his face. He looked up into
the sky above and it glowed a bright blue. The distant sounds of the city
coming to life drifted down the trash littered alley. The whispering of cars,
the pounding of air-hammers from construction sites, the wailing of ambulances.
Kyle fell into a coughing fit and vainly attempted to shrink back under the
blanket. He did not want to face whatever insidious shit the world was
preparing to throw at him today.
Kyle was twenty-three. Fair skinned and ruggedly handsome. Thick, black
eyelashes enveloped steel-blue eyes. His shaggy, blonde hair was tucked under a
red baseball cap. It was summer and he wore his regular seasonal uniform of
white tank top and blue basketball shorts with sneakers. He had a lean and
athletic build. Not tall, in fact, he was rather short. Which was commented on
repeatedly, but Kyle kept a confidence air about him.
At first look, one might think that he held a high position of a clean
jock in any major college sports team. A closer inspection unveiled the fine
layer of dirt and grease on his face and arms. The dirty teeth, chapped lips
and black grime under the fingernails, fingernails which had been chewed raw.
The smudged clothes emitted a waft of unclean genitals and rectum. His
sneakers, once white, were now smeared in black dirt and mud and stank from
odor.
Moans of the living dead. The thirty or so others who shared the alley
began to stir. Followed by an orchestra of coughing, sniffing, hawking,
intermittent yawns. Kyle didn't want to see them. To look at those poor souls
who shared his destitution. But, he had to wake up and grab his gear. Soon the
police would cruise by and herd everyone off.
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