On the block with my building is an alcove, a concave scoop removed from its building, a smoking area. Sometimes, in spite of the shallowness of the scoop and the lack of cover, it attracts the homeless. Yesterday, as I passed by on my way to get tacos, shouldering through the baseball crowd, a woman sat there in the alcove, legs crossed, and cut off all her hair with a steak knife, the tufts strewn before her, fluttering softly away on the breeze.
When she was finished, she bowed her mangy bald head toward a new task, the circular arrangement of a small pile of what looked like animal droppings on the concrete in front of her. It wasn't the shit of a large mammal, if it was shit at all; it was smaller, white-flecked pieces, like bird shit. Maybe it was from geese.
I looked at this scene for only a few seconds because, you know, it's not polite to stare. Then, for the next hour or so, it remained burned into my retinas, an omen of the apocalypse.
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