"Can I do anything for you?" "Yes. Just move."
...when I thought I should bring him a hot coffee every morning.
I first noticed him only days before. He was sitting atop a garbage bin, near a steaming subway vent, talking to someone who just wasn't there. Long dirty hair around a frozen gray face. The eyes were there, though. His cracked, dirty hands had long since become claws. He slowly pointed to me. "Move! You're ruining my zest for life." It was truly just me nearby, and either way, the only one who stopped walking for a moment. I looked around. "Yes, you! You! I don't need a lamp to see you."
I couldn't have risked a touch. I lowered the coffee cup on the walkway. "Here, my friend. You can use it to dream of winter ending."
He thundered. "Move away! Summer is already here. The end is near. Jesus is coming. I'm not your friend. I'm not here in peace."
I left. That day, at the office, felt longer on the fiftieth floor. The sirens below bellowed all afternoon. In the evening, when I returned home, she looked guilty. A different kind of guilty. This time she didn't look like she cheated on me again while I was at work.
"I love you," she said. "..." "Come on, I had to buy it. It was on sale..." "..."
She opened a large white Christmas bag. Just a bit uneasy. "This dress. I only spent $800 on it. They sell it for twice as much, but it's Christmas now... It was on sale."
It was a cold, dry winter. Again. It had been several years since it last snowed on Christmas Day. The chimney smoke was merry. I'd fallen asleep looking at the naked trees outside, dreaming.
The next morning, he was no longer there. On the garbage bin was a piece of cardboard. Written on it: "The end is near."
In front of it, a cup of coffee still hot, next to a small crumpled piece of paper. I unfolded it. It read... "It first makes you open up, like a desert oasis, and then this is it. It drinks your blood and rots your life. Mistaken for gazelles are mostly camel flies that you can't see; they get you infected. You are loved. Be happy. Merry Christmas!"
I reached for that cup of coffee and read it again. Happy. I moved.