requiem

So the other day I saw something very disturbing. I went to get some Chinese take-out and there was this guy hanging around outside the restaurant. I was sitting in the lobby waiting for my order to be ready and the guy came into the restaurant to pick up some food he had ordered. As he stood at the counter with his arms behind his back, I saw that he had a horrible wound on his left forearm. Horrible to look at, I should say - the wound was remarkably clean. It looked like a deep cut, probably just over an inch, and about five inches long. Even though the red flesh was folded outward and very visible, it was clean and dry with no scabbing. It looked like a piece of meat. It was disturbing enough to see, but the fact that the wound wasn't behaving the way I thought something of that severity should just made the experience that much worse. As I mentioned, it was dry, clean, and free from scabbing - I could even see the marbling of fat in the flesh.

Once I was able to tear my eyes away from the wound, I gave the guy a once over. He was fit and clean shaven and wore a t-shirt and baggy shorts. I could see his heels and his toes through the holes that had been worn in his shoes. After he got his food (also take-out), he walked out of the restaurant and sat down off to the side of the little parking lot and began eating. I got the feeling that he didn't have a thing in the world other than what was on his person. It was as though he had dropped off by some passing spaceship or something. There was so much that didn't make sense about the guy. Homeless but clean shaven and fit? Disgusting, malfunctioning arm wound?

I've thought about this quite a bit in the past couple of days and I still can't figure it out. And I'm afraid I'm going to think about this guy every time I smell Chinese food from now on.