Hooved Beasts:
He was sitting in the train station sleeping, I saw, with a cane next to him and a shopping bag. There were others sitting in the connected seats of the train station waiting area, scattered in that way people do in the cities when they don't wish to know one another. I sat behind him to wait. Something came up behind me like a cat, a smell-shit and piss and dirt-the smell of sickness and uncleanliness. I looked up and noticed that the others who were sitting were arranged in a semi-circle, some looking at me slantedly, like hooved beasts watching the crocodiles in the water during the drought special I saw on the National Geographic channel. I then realized quickly that the beast being avoided was the sleeping man.I immediately moved seats and settled in with the rest of the livestock.Directly across but an almost safe distance away from the sleeping man, I watched him sleep and took a closer look at his appearance. He was comfortably seated with his legs crossed and arms crossed across his chest. He wore a dusty old jean jacket and black pants that were tattered and shredded at the bottom with wrinkly dress shoes. His face was brown from random dirt and oil, and I could see it encrusted into the lines of his face. He was balding at the top of his head and the shit was, indeed, matting the top. Dog shit, probably, and his leg was wet with something and I could only imagine that it was probably dog piss; I could see him sitting on the side of the road in my mind, hand out, sitting cross-legged. A dog walks up and sniffs him, the leaves of his hair the trunk of his waist, and lifts a leg to relieve itself on his roots. People walk by not noticing. People don't give money to the inanimate. So he rises, eyes tired, to search for a suitable place to sleep; where dogs won't piss on him and people won't ogle his misfortune.Another woman goes to sit where I was sitting but pops back, as if someone hit her, before sitting down and looks at the man in disgust. The hooved beasts say nothing, but she joins us in our little herd, says nothing to any of us, and takes her seat on the far end of the room.