hello

Tull

Aqualung

                                                                                                                                            

he  anyone  would be at a loss if they attempted to affix any other I D to him

he lifted up his eyes glimpsing forward from his Algren  so not to walk through anyone

                                                                                     

doing so he saw this ungainly wraith walking directly towards him
staring back at him from the diminishing sidewalk between them
 

his black eyes were set deep in his skull

peering from anguished hollows

he was a stark man   unsettling

knotted tight at his forehead he wore a marl-colored bandanna

it held his greasy hair up out of his sunburnt face and crosshatched eyebrows  

under his wanton eyes  sharp cheeks  pocked with blackheads and many pustules   which also rode the drawn gauntness at either side of his sucked-in broken-tooth face

uneven whiskers ran under his broke hawkish nose  and thickened at his pointy chin

it was impossible he might ever have been an attractive man

he wore a military khaki jacket  it was soiled and hung off his rail-thin body as if off a wire hanger

liver-spotted ulcerated hands hung limp and near-lifeless out of its sleeves

his filthy pants   he had no idea what color they were originally   bagged at his knees and ridiculed what he dare call shoes  bits of cracked and broken leather held together with black electricians tape and silver straps of duct tape

and even as he returned to read his book   these  details  reappeared to him seamlessly  held fast in a raw snapshot that roiled madly in his astonished eyes

reading  he could feel the old mans glare scald the top of his head  taking his measure  as it were  with laserish intensity and circumspect

when the distance he determined between them had eroded and he readied to pass inside him  to his wizened left  leaving him the riot of street traffic  he again lifted his eyes to the old mans as he intended

Good morning  he said to the gentleman  boldly taking in his lackluster blackblue eyes with his own  unashamed

Hello

the old man replied

they passed

he couldnt quite understand  digest  or identify the timbre in the old mans somber hello

it seemed a hello 

as if the old man wasnt sure he would understand English

a hopeful hello

then it seemed a haunted hello  as if the old man wasnt flesh and blood  but something else  that the old man didnt pass him  but passed a phantom in his imagination

a fearful hello

 

a dont-hurt-me hello

a haunting echo of a hello   a hello      hello           that was never returned

he walked on nearly the entire block looking at a sudden page of senseless hieroglyphs

his mind beckoning him  bitching him with every footfall to stop walking and turn and look to see if he really passed anyone

he turned 
the old mans disheveled form hobbled and staggered in the long blue distance

inside his throat there croaked a hello that he refused to emit

he tried hard not say hello
otherwise trying to encourage or invoke a goodness  for the day  
Good morning

Good afternoon

Good evening

hello  had never inspired him

but then he never heard a hello  like the old mans hello

he strangled it in his throat  hello  and hawked it out onto the ground with a companion of green snot and yellowish phlegm

he spat out Aqualung

morning,  Day-Between-two-Ts,  22  7. 15

0034,  Friday,  24  7. 15