He stays in the land a ways from the buildings and smells. One foot presses into the earth while the other escapes its burden for a moment. The strange man claws tightly around the old trunk of the angry tree towering high above him. Slowly he peers around the side of the ancient oak into the city of people. His clothes are burned and tattered, willfully obliging as his covering from nakedness as it looked like only they chose to stay on by worn threads. Without shoes, the dust clung thickly to to the wanderers bare feet. They were gentle, as was he. Timid and slow to disturb the world he was, full of love and fear.
His face filthy, he beheld the ones for whom he longed. Gazing he knew them all although they did not know him. Not as he was now. The cars rushed passed the curbs, and the lights flickered, and the people walked this way and that way to some other points seemingly not related anyone to another. A dog loose and running amok ate from a garbage can toppled onto its side. The birds circled and hovered overhead and the workers worked their labors. On and on the motion did not cease, the ones he held in his eyes beheld nothing but the bodies and life they each spent on their own desires.
Strange dark hair he brushed from his strange face. Sitting quietly behind his wooden guardian he looked back in time. In youth the man knew the ones from the city, and they took out his organs and broke all of his bones, his head they crushed and his heart they ate. Blood spilled to the tile floor in the hallways and rooms, and everyplace outside. They tore at his skin and stopped his throat. The city ones in their homes and with their beds and food; they once reached in and put the poison inside of him.
Oh how he loved them all. His blue eyes let fell drops of dark cold blood, bled from wounds inside of him from long ago. Oh how he loved them all.
The man had been saved from the sulfur, and from the burning. He had been rescued from the ocean of death by a Champion. Looking down his hand began to shake and grasp for something unknown. What has happened? What has gone wrong? Will this damage heal or will he remain in despair. And why? He covered his countenance and wept without restraint.
One day he went to the building where his brothers and sisters go, he went inside and sat down. He stood up and sung the hymns and bowed his head, he sat down and raised his eyes. When no one was looking he drank into himself the room with all his family within. Biting hard now his teeth ground as he fought back the tears. An institution was the machine, and all were processed beautifully as they remembered all the steps and missed no beat. It hurt so much. He stole another picture of them. It burned in his brain. The minutes were passing too quickly. Soon it would be over and he would have to leave.
The final steps were completed and all rose to their feet and proceeded to the lobby where there were drinks and chairs, and all talked to the others and their faces bore smiles and pleasure. The man slowly walked over to the coffee holder and poured out some comfort so that his hands would not have nothing to entertain as his hopes for the comfort of another was at its elevation. He sat in the plastic chair against the wall. His two eyes begged them, they begged them to come. They wanted it so bad. But they did not come, no not one. The man went through the great doors and fell into his car and drove away. Oh how he loved them all.
To The Very Gates 