It’s a funny game we play, isn’t it? You pass me by,
invisible to my eyes (or so I tell myself). We stand looking on, while you
pretend we don’t exist. Out of the corner of our eyes we see you picking
through the trash cans in the middle of the crowd …repulsed, we pretend to look
away, thinking that maybe if we don’t see you then you won’t be there. And you…
cigarette in hand, ratty clothes on, the nervous jerky movements as you rummage
through the rubbish to find a half-eaten sausage and an almost-empty beer can.
You examine the sausage and throw away the remnant of the bun for a reason I can’t
fathom. Sniffing the beer, you drain the last few miserable drops before dropping it back in the trash. You
very well could be on some drug; you also very well could simply be mentally
handicapped, left to fend for yourself. In either case you are an outcast,
rejected by society. As you straighten up to walk away in search of the next
garbage can for the next bite, I quickly look away…but not quick enough. For that
brief moment in time that our eyes meet, we become real to each other. In that
instant, Jesus cries out to me from behind the bars of his window-pane eyes.
I look away.
He walks away.
