Stray

A faint wind had begun to blow. My bones ached. I was tired, and I had to find a place to lie down. In this cruel and terrifying world, I was a single soul, a lone piece of rock. Floods would pour over me, lightning would strike, yet I would remain whole. Creatures would pass over me, grass would grow upon me, but I knew how to breathe. That was who I was—one solitary soul left in this world.

Under the dazzling stars of the night, I wandered between towering buildings and asphalt streets. People hurried vaguely toward their jobs or homes. One brushed past me with a shove; another didn’t even bother to glance in my direction. That was how worthless I was. I couldn’t make sense of them. What was all the rush for? Why were they so attached to their phones, their paperwork, the concrete they lived in, in a world where they would only breathe for a short while and then leave? Hadn’t all of this been destroyed once during the great flood? Hadn’t humanity died and been reborn? Did they think it wouldn’t happen again? And yet, arrogantly, as if defying God, they kept multiplying across the earth. That was the part I couldn’t understand. They were the fungi of the world—its accumulated filth.

As I passed a street filled with alcoholics, a thin drifter with bloodshot eyes looked at me and smiled. He had given up on life and surrendered himself to nothingness. Perhaps he had once been a dreamer. Or maybe he had been like the others—a man of ordinary life. But now he was detached, a soulless body. He had chosen this. He had left behind his parents, his spouse, his child, and come here instead. He preferred the green weed wrapped in a scrap of paper to his lips rather than the warm kiss of his partner. He filled his stomach not with hot food, but with cold acid. Now there was no turning back. He could never return, because he had already given away his soul.

I looked at him with pity and hid beneath my coat so he wouldn’t envy me. Despite my filthy beard and ragged clothes, I was more honorable than he was.

After a while, it began to snow. Tiny white particles fell from the sky, covering both me and the ground. The cold had always been my greatest enemy, and this white filth was its sugar. I needed to find shelter as soon as possible.

Just then, I came across a man yelling into the phone pressed against his ear. His black hair had begun to gray, hiding the falling snowflakes. He wore a black suit and carried a small briefcase. The moment I saw him, I thought: a servant of the devil. They were opportunists, grabbing at the promised cheese without measuring the trap. They were caught in the devil’s nest, unable to escape. Now, the documents in their hands and the notifications on their phones had become their only companions. I won’t even mention what they had left behind.

He was shouting at his wife—perhaps because he had come home late. His wife didn’t know he was a servant of the devil; she had taken him into her arms simply because he pleased her eyes. She must have thought he was a young man she would spend endless summers with on the beach. But in vain. Life had spat into her dream and split it in two. All she had gained was an aging penguin.

I passed by the penguin slowly, so he could see what he had lost. I boasted shamelessly, showing him everything he could never have.

The steps I took along the street had begun to ache in my knees. The darkness hurt my eyes. My patience was wearing thin, on the verge of fading away.

Just then, I came across a woman with tearful eyes. The luxurious red coat she wore concealed her long hair. She looked exhausted—at least as much as I was. She was bored, overwhelmed, and hurting now. I could understand her; I could feel her.

She was another soul who had never tasted the blessings of this world, yet she struggled under the illusion that she was somehow special. Perhaps she was the daughter of a wealthy family who had argued with her father over her boyfriend at the dinner table, and now found herself alone in the streets. Or maybe it was the boyfriend himself who had hurt her, and now she was crying over losing a man she once believed to be the love of her life.

Every man lets a woman live a dream, only to abandon her afterward. He gives hope, loves, and makes himself loved—then suddenly traps her inside a closed box.

The bright red, cheerful coat no longer suited her. She was incomplete—and would remain that way.

I wanted to smile at her, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to become yet another person who gives false hope.

After a while, I turned the corner. I walked beneath the apartment blocks where old women lived. Trash bins were filled with black bags and rotten food. Sometimes, these became my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. All of it was free, all of it endless.

Then I came across those who believed they were freer than me—a group of skinny youths in hoodies and colorful accessories. They were telling each other things, thinking they were detached from the world. They were the ones most deeply mistaken. I called them fools. As long as their parents were there, stroking their backs and standing beside them, their freedom was limitless. They fed on their parents’ souls to live. They believed they were heroes who could conquer mountains and cross oceans. They thought they were the protagonists of their own stories.

I passed them with a faint smirk of pity. Because when the illusion shattered, they would feel as though they had fallen from a cliff onto jagged rocks.

I went no further and turned into a dark alley. Black grime had gathered between the exposed bricks of stripped buildings. I took shelter behind a trash container and lay down. Soon after, two hungry stray dogs—one black, one brown—came, perhaps the only ones who could truly understand me. One became my blanket, the other my pillow.

As the snow fell onto my face, I closed my eyes.

I was not human. I was merely a soul—living beneath them, yet thinking beyond them—trapped in this decaying body, with my dogs beside me.