At This Hour

CW: death; reference to suicide

The wind has sharpness to its sound and feeling, which forces my broken body to wake from much needed rest. Debris scatters and circles around my feet, still in their tattered boots. I look to see if anything can be of use. A can of coke-a-cola, paper crumpled into a ball, a broken pencil, crushingly empty bags of Doritos and Takis. The paper is curious to me, but unfolding it only reveals some 8th grader’s pre-algebra homework half completed. The most interesting thing is a crude drawing of a little old woman pointing a gun at her head, a BANG to the left of her face. Howling on, the wind keeps my eyes from closing. These nights grow in frequency as the year ends, a great inconvenience when you sleep outside.

The park is mostly empty, except for those of us who sleep in this park on Thursdays, a night free of law enforcement. When they do come, we dissipate like a particle in a solution to float elsewhere. Barren red oak trees line the park, their empty branches twisting upwards towards heaven and away from the private hell many of us face getting through each day. Benches are scattered sporadically across the park, all of which have metal arm rests blocking anyone from lying down. The ground will have to do. This suits me fine as I loathe the smell of metal, and it always smells. I am lucky in some small way to have a sleeping bag to protect my head and body from direct contact with all the little creatures and messes crouching in the grass.

Disappearing into the background has always been easy for me, it is in my very nature. Though cameras decorate the streets of this quiet bay area town, no one ever seems to bother me and I get by. I have no family currently, despite having had many in the past. I am one of the city’s many invisibles, yet I get the sense that I am being watched right at this very moment, I turn and spot a small figure about 50 feet away, bathed in the dim orange light of the dilapidated streetlamps. I am temporarily frozen in both fear and curiosity. I do not, cannot, look away.

 I am startled by the figure’s resolute stillness. Ignore, I decide and turn back towards my own inner world. 5 seconds go by before I hear it. The sound of a baby crying, starting with small hiccups and ascending into wails that compete with the wind. I want to continue looking away, this child is not my problem, but I feel compelled to turn once again in the direction of that small figure, unmoved. Could this be a young mother and child? The size of this mass sitting looks too small to be a grown woman, maybe a child and another child?

Everything in me is telling me to turn back and ignore, ignore. If you heard these cries, you would swear they were malicious with an animalistic quality. The baby’s yowling increases to a shrill volume. Despite the distance of the cries, despite the unmoving figure, the cries begin to sound closer. I shake my body into motion and begin to walk and that is when the figure moves, lumbering like a foal and I decide to walk just a bit faster.

I take off into a sprint, leaving all my things behind and wouldn’t you do the same? I run into the middle of the road and turn only to see if the creature is still on my path and it is. I run, running so fast my feet barely scrape the ground and I can hear the gristly sound of the creature’s wicked limbs crunching getting louder. I have no sense of time - while I know it is exceedingly early in the morning , surely something must be open, someone must be out there who can help. Then again, I have never been able to rely on others for so much as an open bathroom. There is nothing I can do but run for my life, slowly depleting my energy as I hear the thrusting of the creature’s limbs gaining on me.

I scream into the dark early morning as I sprint across the street searching for any signs of ordinary life. Drugstore- closed. Bar – closed. Finally, I spot a gas station with the lights on and this will be my salvation. Its cold, bluish white lights and gentle buzzing have never felt so warm, I am comforted by the sight of another person as the gas station employee’s appearance becomes clearer to me – a middle-aged man with ruddy skin and a strong brow. As I rush to the door, I swear I feel something just barely scrape across my neck as the door closes.

“DOYOUSEEITDIDITFOLLOWME?” The words come out in one panicked breath. The employee, whose name tag reads Paul, glares and returns to his sudoku unfazed. I retreat inward, conscious of my torn clothes and the undeniable stench of my hair and body. The gas station store brings a slight ease to my worry, but I feel the urge to hide regardless. Crouching behind a display of chips, pretzels, and jerky, I wait silently for something unknown. About five minutes pass until Paul follows me, standing four feet away.

“No loitering. Paying customers only.” Before I can protest, he repeats himself more sternly in that gravelly manner . “No. Loitering. Paying customers only.” I look out at the street through the gas station windows and see blankness and hollow buildings. “Please, and I know how this sounds- something is after me. Please, please let me at least stay until the sun comes up all the way.” Paul is unmoved.

“No exceptions. Especially since you’re lying and I don’t care for liars. Get out before I call the police.” How does HE know I’m lying? In his tone, I sense judgement not just at my current actions but my entire state of being. ‘How dare he, he could be me after one bad month’ I think, knowing my cries of need are futile. Defeat hangs heavy over my head. I know how it looks but I also know the very thing I have encountered is as real as hair standing up on the back of my neck. The sun will be up soon. There is a chance I’ll be safe when I go back out onto the street. There is also no other choice, so I go out and behind the gas station building to the dumpster, a place I know well. It has fed me, clothed me, and now it will shelter me.

Do you know what it means to be believed? To be believed is to be seen, and I am not seen despite being out in the open, despite making my presence on this earth known on every single street I have walked tired and shoddy. I feel no sense in fighting, I have been one of the many unseens of this world for years now.

They will not find my body for another three days. It is not until another employee, a young woman this time, drops her phone into the dumpster and sees my pale grey hand sticking out. She screams into the night just as I had and, in the distance, you can almost hear a baby cry.