Nocturnal Reflection

More overnight company, kind of…. There is a guy who kind of latched onto me.  I don’t judge what I do not understand and there are many things I cannot understand without experiencing for myself.  Addiction is one of those things; I won’t condone drug taking and have lost some great friends through it, but being an addict does not make somebody a bad person.  At best it makes them a very misguided and misunderstood person who wants an escape from their situation.  When I first encountered this guy he looked very unkempt; clearly his addiction was coming before anything else in his life; before food, before hygiene.  He still enjoys a smoke a little too much but he looks better for a haircut, shave a a decent meal on a regular basis.  He has taken to pitching up next to me at night, smoking a couple of whatever he can get, then he falls asleep for a few hours.

As a rule he will get up and wander off in the early hours, I dare say he is largely oblivious through substance use and forgets where he was sleeping.  He will invariably leave a mess, which I will invariably tidy up in the morning before I wander off for the day.  It does well to keep the area tidy and the locals sweet; I am their guest overnight and I would prefer not to have to find somewhere else to be.  I can’t tell anyone where to sleep, and there is safety in numbers, but when one starts smoking herbal concoctions, others soon turn up and join in.  I sometimes wonder if I am the only one on the streets without a habit.  Perhaps I am, which, regardless of which side of the law you are on, makes me the odd one out, the outsider.  Who is to say what is normal anymore?  I am just me and just doing my thing and in their eyes that is exactly what they are doing too.  Different does not have to be a bad thing so long as there is tolerance.