One of Them

Warning this is a saddening monologue about homelessness. Viewer discretion is advised.

Xavier is on the sidewalk with needles and litter surrounding him, he is holding a sign that says, “Please help.” He has a bandage on his hand. The sign is clearly written in his own blood. He is extremely dehydrated, pale and starving.

Please, please help, I’d do anything for just one meal or at this point (Softly) a way out. (Looks to the bridge). I would get on my bruised and swollen hands and knees and suck a god damn guy’s dick for some fucking bread! (Stomach rumbles) The disgusting, horrific, degrading shit I’ve had to endure to have a meal, and I’m still (laughs) still malnourished, tired and dying. Thank god… All my Christian schooling taught me that suicide is a mortal sin, but god damn eternal damnation sounds like fucken heaven compared to another week eating rotten rodents, literal garbage and poisoned food that psychopaths give out for free. I’ve seen my friends get drugged and taken away to China. I think their harvesting their organs. They dehumanise us, think their better than us because their fortunate enough to not have been affected by the .com crash… they don’t know the level of shit I’ve been through or literally any homeless person, most of which have some form of mental illness. I was that normal good Christian kid who went to church, had a good education, got a great job, almost six figures…(Cries) I had a beautiful wife and child who died in a… in a car crash. They even wore their seatbelts, drunk driver smashed into them. Little Suzan died a month after her sixth birthday. She would be turning 24 in June… I for some reason partly blame myself, maybe if I drove instead of her, maybe I could have saved their lives. Or maybe I would have died instead of them… I keep having the same nightmares, always the same thing, my daughter being taken away from me and my wife saying, “don’t cry my love, we will always be with you.” And the best dreams I have is of when I’m dying. Only then I’ve been told I smile. There has been times when life turns to grey, and all the shit that’s in my head turns into a dull hum, a constant state of melancholy where shadow people stalk and paranoia sets in… every…single… night. Crackheads fight me until I pull out my toothbrush shank. The fucken pigs move me from one side of the fucking city to another. They say I’m a danger to society. What a load of fucking bullshit! I have never been in a fight or did any form of criminal activity until after my family died. At first I stayed with my friends and family, then when I couldn’t get a job and turned into a waste of resources I left, I didn’t want to be a burden. I recently tried to overdose. I stole some drugs, didn’t care what it was so I took all of it, thought it’d kill me. But I guess I died a long time ago, just a lost apparition looking for a tunnel of light… Winter is dawning and my cardboard blanket is a useful as it sounds. People are also cold and mean. They kick my cup 1/3rd full of 5 and 10 cent coins. Or they spit at me, tell me to get a fucking job, spill their drinks on me, laugh at me, gawk at me. I don’t get how people can be so very unkind. I donated almost everything I had to all types of charities because I believed if you look after the world, the world will reward you. So much for fucking Karama! I tried being the best man I could and look how that gets ya. Meanwhile there’s dicks with hotted up exhausts making it impossible to sleep. Not that it’s easy getting to sleep anyway. I think I’ve got psychotic depression. I’ve been having nonsensical thoughts of death, destruction and an impending feeling of doom and dread. I fear for my life every day. I was always taught that a human life is priceless, I’d sell mine for a warm bed and 10grams of pentenyl. I know tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow until the day I rekindle with my loved ones will be a constant uphill struggle with the weight of a million tears weighing me down slowly drowning me...(Walks to the bridge.)