The Only

The stock market crash changes everyone’s lives overnight. It hit everyone from the richest man to the poorest, leaving no one behind. Their money was gone. Everything they had invested in banks, gone. The banks could do nothing to help them. They were on their own. Those broken years will never be forgotten. It was the Great Depression and it was there to stay.
There was no food in the kitchen. There was no money to buy it. The man was a factory worker but when the factory shut down he was nothing. He was a man, in a house, with nothing. His wife and kids had moved on to a better pace. A place where there was no starvation and there was no disease, only happiness. He was truly alone in a city of thousand. No one had time for each other. They cared only for themselves and their families. There was no time for strangers.
The line creeped up as it neared the door. People had been in line for hours in the hopes of maybe getting just a cup of something warm. Far towards the back, there was a man standing alone with his tin cup. He waited each day, and each day he left with nothing. The pots were scraped clean and the doors were closed. He was left scrounging for what little change there was at whatever odd jobs he could find. He was digging sewers to scraping out the blood on the butchers floor. The man would watch the beautiful red meat. Wrapped neatly in a brown paper and neatly tied with a lovely white string. Those were not for him. The man paid with what little change he had earned that day for the privilege of bringing home a bag full of scraps. A brown canvas bagged filled with ears, eyes, and tongue. To him it was gold. The smell of cooking meat over the fire was the last thing he had to look forward to in his cod dark home.
The leaves on the trees had come and gone. Now what are left are only bare branches swaying in the breeze. A man sits, watching them sway. He can feel the cold wind that had ripped the last of the leaves form their lonely branches. On cold bare wood remained. But the trees had a wonderful thing to look forward to, the return of their leaves in the spring. They would be even more beautiful that the last. The man would not have that same pleader. His family would not return in the spring. His wife would never and tell him that everything was going to be all right. He would never hold his daughter’s hand on the way to church. The trees were the lucky ones. Within their cold bare branches there was life. Beneath his rough worn out hand, behind his empty eyes there was nothing. No hope for a better life. This was the Great Depression and it had him in its mighty grasp.
A horn sounded in the distance, but he did not here. He continued on his way. There was no time. E had an interview today. He had a chance at something more that he had and he was going to take it. He stepped from the sidewalk and into the street. He was lying in the street. He could think of no reason for it. He looked up and saw strangers around him. They were talking but he did not here. There was a crowd that had gathered. There was nothing they could do. They could not help him. He stared up at them but saw nothing but blue. He saw blue sky above him, not a cloud in sight. He saw a lone black bird. It circled above him, watching, waiting. There was nothing for him here. He saw the birds black feathers; he saw the bird’s black eyes. It circled above him, watching, waiting. They crowd stared. He was nothing. The people were not his friends. They were strangers. The bird was death and it waited for him. The bird was not his friend but it was waiting. He was alone. He was nothing.