On Sunday night, me and my beau were strolling back along our moonlit street after a very satisfying veggie thai meal with our local GE campaigner and AC/DC fan. We came level to what looked like an old futon that had been dumped on the street several days ago folded in a sloppy kind of roll and somewhat water-logged, when I noticed the soles of a pair of dirty but very much real, human feet sticking out the end. I kind of froze, and Biz looked around as I said "er, there's some, er, feet in that." I just had an immediate vision of it being a dead body, and worse, a body that had been there for several days without anyone noticing.
While thoughts are running through my head like "Should I just keep walking? /Should I call the cops? /an ambo?/How will I establish if its someone passed our or just sleeping? /Oh my god am I going to have to touch a potentially dead body??". Meanwhile Biz takes a few steps closer, he tells me later, to get a better smell as that will give a good indication of what's going on. (By the way, he's an aid worker, not pyscho serial killer). After I think I said "should I call someone?" the feet wiggled, and the person probably sighed at the idiot locals, then rolled over. This triggered an immediate wave of relief - oh its just a homeless guy. Not dead. Nothing to worry about after all.
1 comment:
I miss Sydney. Boozy Christmas lunches, hard rubbish scavenging, homelessness. Okay maybe I am getting a little too nostalgic and homesick when stories of homeless people in futons make me sigh and look longingly into the distance. Or perhaps it is because the homeless people here are usually also limbless....
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