Charlie’s return to his home was uneventful, but every step seemed slower, like he was trying to wade from shore to shore through deep water that didn’t want him to pass. The current of his hopeless thoughts threatened to carry him away, and nobody saw a thing.

He passed among his fellow men like a ghost, unseen by anyone while they went about their business absorbed in whatever was most urgent in their lives at the moment. A child in white tugged on her mother’s arm, her golden hair hung loose and bounced around with her frantic little hopping.

“Balloon! I want a balloon!” She shouted and pointed with her free hand to a mobile cart where a very ‘round’ seller in a bright red vest and white button down shirt with a long handlebar mustache was selling them. He had a little green tank of helium on hand, and traded red, blue, and white balloons for a dollar, his sign said ‘three for two’.

Clearly feeling indulgent, the little girl’s mother, clad in a blue sundress and carrying an expensive brown designer handbag, approached the seller and slipped him two dollars.

They were walking away with three balloons and one smiling girl in tow, but just as Charlie turned his back, a howl of despair hit his ear and he whirled around to watch as she began to bawl as all three of her balloons shot up into the air and straight toward the sky.

The girl’s mother was doing her very best to comfort her, “I’ll buy you more balloons!” She exclaimed while stroking the long blonde hair and hugging her, but the child would have none of it.

“But I want those!” She shouted, and Charlie left them behind.

‘I wonder how that will play out.’ He thought, but the matter was forgotten before he reached the door of his apartment.

He slipped his key into the lock, turned it until he heard the telltale click, then turned the smooth cool metal knob and opened the door.

The way in and out had been somewhat cleared, but the smell of the place hit Charlie full in the face before he took even one step inside. “God… even with the shit bags thrown out…”

He went into the kitchen, wading through the waste, kicking it aside until a pizza box got stuck to his shoe. “Oh… gross!” Charlie shouted as he hopped around and tried to peel it off his foot, the cheese was dried, but some sticky, sour smelling stuff had seeped onto it and turned it into a foul sort of glue that stuck to the bottom of his shoe and would not let go.

“Everything sucks, everything is awful…” Charlie groused when he dropped the pizza box back into the pile.

‘Trying to talk to god didn’t work out… were those ‘signs’? Was that it? How the hell am I supposed to work with that? Maybe… maybe if I tried again! Maybe I didn’t offer enough!’ He thought, it was desperate, it was foolish, it was… the only thing he could think of.

The first thing he did however, was find his phone and send a text to Josef. “Going to be gone for a few days. We can talk later. Thank you for everything.”

There was no answer for several hours, which Charlie didn’t find surprising, but then the little ‘ding’ of a message struck his ear. Charlie plugged in the passcode for his phone and slid to the new message, predictably, it was a response from Josef. “It’s all good, just take care, I’ll stop by again soon.”

“Good man, damn good man.” Charlie mumbled, and the next few days were spent in a frenzy.

On Sunday he attended a Catholic mass.

On Monday he visited a Mosque.

On Tuesday he visited a Hindu temple.

On Wednesday he visited a Presbyterian service.

Church after church, service after service, temple, mosque. Charlie got up day after day, morning after morning, and after quick google searches, he sought the nearest religious center or service.

At every stop, it was the same. Each time he sought to commune, to meditate, to pray… his skin would sweat, his voice would crack, he lifted up his voice in prayer seeking answers to his only wish.

The chirping nestlings and their despairing cries, the lumps they made in the belly of the snake… ‘Why can’t I escape that?!’ He cried out in his head as he lay himself down in bed again after… ‘How many services has it been?!’

The answer was lost unless he cared enough to search his Google history. And he didn’t.

Each night, his eyes closed and the weightless, floating feeling came over Charlie again. Wandering through the fog, crossing a deep river that struggled to keep him back, but unable to stop or retreat.

The battle of the nest was fought over and over, the birds attacked, sweeping with the grace of angels against a demon, their beaks like flaming swords, wounding the monster again and again. Charlie wanted to cheer, but his mouth wouldn’t move. He sought a weapon, but there was no grass, only blackness beneath, even the body of the tree was gone.

All there was, was the branch and the nest and the combatants fighting for all their lives while the hatchlings cried for help.

From above, chance would take a turn, and the first bird would die, and in frenzied rage or despair, the other would act rashly, and the unhinged jaw of the snake would reunite the mates again. Sometimes…

Charlie awakened in a cold sweat, breathing hard as if he had been the birds on the wing, or the snake, or the despairing chicks, his hand touched his chest, he could feel his heart thudding inside his body as if he’d just run for miles on end without stopping, his soft brown eyes staring up into the darkness of his home.

His last order from Amazon had included a clock with an alarm, but he reached beside him, grasped the long plastic surface, and turned the face of it away. ‘What does it matter what time it is now?’

Charlie’s staring up into the darkness would endure for as long as it did, as long as it could. Little noises from the outside world, sometimes a heavy rain that pattered on the window. Other times it was the noise of the outside world from those who lived and worked in the twilight hours apart from those who did their work during the day.

When those noises hit his ear, Charlie lied. ‘They’re keeping me awake.’ He told himself, and lay with his arms and legs spread out on a mattress he knew he should have thrown away.

He wiped the sweat from his brow with an arm that was no less sweaty than the brow he’d just wiped, and so accomplished nothing but smearing the sweat around.

The dawn would come, and he got up… and again he sought to bargain with whatever gods people said existed. ‘My soul is yours if you’ll just do this one thing…’

Offering what he wasn’t even sure he had, always left him feeling strange. But one thing they agreed upon… their gods desired that the souls of men come and join them in the afterlife.

Unable to sleep well at night, and wandering through the day like a fog as he begged for help from god after god, it was, bizarrely enough, an ungodly amount of time before he noticed that the homeless man screaming about the end of the world was no longer in his usual place.

Charlie stopped and stared at the spot and scratched his head, even coming to a proper reason was a struggle for his sleep deprived mind. So when he stopped to stare at the empty space, he stopped for far too long, drawing dubious and curious looks from those who passed by around him.

A sinking feeling took Charlie over, and he stepped toward the alley. The coolness of the space between buildings was notably different from the open world, the constant shade of the unmoving brick structures kept the space there distinctly ‘moist’. A bit of moss grew on the sides and a fair amount of uncleaned grime lay on the concrete path between the two businesses.

Breathing heavier, Charlie suppressed the chill, or tried to… the shudder took him over anyway. But that did not stop him from taking another step forward, his foot splashed in a small puddle which hadn’t evaporated away thanks to being hidden from the sun so completely.

He took another step, ignoring the grime, ignoring the stale taste of the air of a lingering stink, he went farther, there ahead lay a wider space in the alley where an old dumpster sat. The big green thing had gone unemptied for a long time, it was easy to see why. When Charlie looked farther, a newer building on the other side had been built years before that narrowed the alley again on the other end, the path to the dumpster was easily passable for a person, but no truck was going to get in.

‘No wonder he…’ Charlie began to think, then realized, ‘what was his name? I’ve seen him almost every day for years, other than times I was gone for work… but I never even knew his name.’ Charlie realized and scratched his head.

He looked around the wider area of the alley, the debris was plentiful, old cans that blew in, a few wrappers from old food, including one with a bright sun that had a happy smile painting on it. ‘Sunshine Burgers… damn, that place closed down when I was a kid.’

Other than that however, it was obvious that ‘someone’ had essentially made camp in this spot.

There were layers of cardboard laid out end to end to make a kind of mattress, and a shopping cart with bottles not yet taken in for recycling. A tattered blue tarp lay crumpled nearby to serve as protection from the weather, but the space where it would have been erected, if the old rebar poles were any clue, lay unused. Instead the tarp was crumpled in the corner where the big green dumpster met the back wall.

“Ah… homeless guy, guy… man… anyone here…?” Charlie asked, then cursed. ‘Stupid, you can see there’s nobody here.’

While he continued to walk around the space, looking at various things, as if some of them could offer a clue, he felt a crunch beneath his shoe.

He moved his foot and looked down, a very large broken liquor bottle lay where his shoe had just been. Charlie’s brow furrowed. “I’ve never seen Homeless Guy drink before…”

“Hey! Get outta here! This’s my space!” Charlie heard the gruff, angry voice and turned around to see a scruffy bearded man in a tattered old camouflage army coat and pants.

A half smoked cigarette was in his hand, and dirt was smeared over most of his face.

“Ah… sorry but… I was… for a moment I thought you were someone else.” Charlie stammered, and the homeless man glowered at him.

“Yeah… who?” The gruff voice demanded with suspicion and mistrust filling the eight feet of space between them both.

“I-I don’t know his name.” Charlie said, “He, well he used to hang out over there.” Charlie then pointed past the homeless man toward the alley entrance near the church.

The newcomer relaxed a little, “Oh him? That’s why this’s my space. Joey got hauled off, he had a brain sickness kinda thing, schizo or somethin, anyway he got drunk a few weeks ago and hauled off.” A shrug followed the statement and Charlie relaxed.

“So, he’s alright, he’s getting help. That’s good.” Charlie replied and shut his eyes slowly while he exhaled.

“What’re you, stupid, man? Joey got hauled off to be buried, he died. Got all liquored up to quiet the voices, and he didn’t wake back up after that. Guess they quiet now, an I was next up to get his space… now unless you’re goin to gimmie some money or somethin… git. Got a dollar for a down on their luck vet?”

The tattered gloved hand of the homeless man was thrust out…

Charlie shot upright in his bed, breathing hard as if he’d run a marathon, it was pitch black outside, his body soaked with sweat, and rain pattering against the window, a roll of thunder went over the sky. His mouth was open, allowing him to pant freely until he lay back down spread eagle on the bed.

“That’s going to keep me awake.” Charlie said, watching the rain come down and listening to the thunder roll, as he lied to himself again.