Sven nodded. A pencil lead scritched it way across the tiny pack of paper in the kid’s cupped oversized hand. Funny how I didn’t see that before, he thought idly, and raised his brows. He watched the skinny kid drag his eyes toward the sidewalk, and follow the bloody path back to its source.
Sven then saw the small army of blue uniforms milling beyond the yellow police tape.
ooooo
He knew Janoos liked helping people. Be it the down and outs, the odd ones that had a tad too much of life and thus were drowning in whatever liquid that was handy and cheap, or the lost.
The lost were the most interesting to Sven. Often these were foreigners with the misfortune of running out of money and had little other option but to take to the rough and cold streets. With these came lilting accents as they attempted English and wild tales of far off places he could only imagine. Sadly, and more often these days, were the desperate mothers of small children, most of which were seeking escape from a violent home. He could tell those by the hunted sort of look to their eyes, and the hunched over way in which they held themselves on the porch.
Janoos often went out of his way to provide shelter to such folk, and Sven found the humor to nickname such unfortunate people as “strays”.
This morning he knew Janoos was helping a stray girl. He saw her on the porch. Her blue eyes darted about too much in his glimpse of her for his liking, and her shoulder length blond hair wasn’t quite greasy enough for her to be someone that his neighbor had scooped up from an alleyway.
She held her head high and proud, as she flicked her likely borrowed cigarettes free from the ashes, He judged her spine was straight more often than not as she huffed the smoke out of her lungs. She stared at him as he trundged his garbage cans out to the curb. He thought her face pinched into a scowl for a moment, but he couldn’t be sure. Maintaining the precaious balance of rattling tin cans he was dragging behind him held most of his attention. The towering sordid contents wobbled dangerously as he righted them at the steet. By the time he turned about, the porch was empty of her presence, and door to the porch had closed.
ooooo
“I’m not coming in.” Sven said into the cell. To his ears, his voice sounded strained and rough, as though he had spent many hours crying. He hadn’t, but his throat felt awful tight.
“Well, Steven…”
“Sven.”
“Sven. Come back to work when you’re ready to work.” Said the voice on the other end. Sven only know him as some supervisor that the company hired a few weeks back. He had never bothered to visit the office to meet the guy, and even now he highly expected the jerk to be replaced within a few months. “We’re too busy here to not have somebody who’s dependable.”
“I am dependable, it’s just..”
“I don’t wanna hear it, ok? You’re got three days already. According to our attendance system, if you take any more, you’ll need a doctor’s note to come back.”
Sven grit is teeth and growled out a polite, “Fine.” Before he pressed the glowing red icon to end the transmission. He then toss the device to the counter, and leaned his head into his hands.
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