He died in Venice

I was wandering around downton Venice the other day. I came to a set of stairs leading toward a bridge. I headed towards the steps. There was a murmur and and I saw four policemen standing at the bottom of the stairs. At their feet, and the bottom of the steps was a dead man.

He looked as if he'd been homeless and possibly blind as he had one of those red and white walking sticks. Two police filled out papers as a third one--a very large, serious-faced woman directed us to step over him one person at a time. I stepped over his body and walked up the stairs.

I thought about the dead man as I walked down Venice Ave. I wondered if perhaps maybe he wasn't quite dead, but just passed out. They didn't seem to be trying to save him though, so I figured he really must have already died.

A few moments later I went into the Subway food chain and ordered a meatball sub. I had started to feel quite nice, and was in an overall happy mood. I flirted with the middle-aged, middle-eastern counter woman while she made the sub. She kept smiling and sort of rolling her eyes. The store owner was her husband. He wore a turban.

When I got home I ate the sandwich. It made me feel terrible and I decided to try to stop eating terrible shit from fast-food chains. I thought again of the dead man and thought he probably ate alot of this shit himself. I thought he probably didn't have any friends, and probably no one was too sad about him dying. I'm sure at one point he was young, and lived with his parents or some older people and had probably at least once talked about wanting to be a cowboy or rocket man. I felt pretty awful again, and figured if no one was going to cry for him then I would. I went into my room and sat down and pictured him lying there under the steps. I waited for the tears to come but they didn't. I thought about him a little more, and tried to encourage more thoughts of him as an ambitious youth but still I couldn't cry. Eventually I decided it was none of my business anyhow, and plenty of people are dying all over the place. I just don't have to see them or step over them. I figured I can't go around crying about all of them so I probably shouldn't sit here much longer trying to cry for this guy.

After a moment I went on with my day, returning phone calls and so on.