A fragment of a thing

You're dirty. You smell.  21 days wearing the same clothes will do that to you. You're also hungry, so you head toward the only place open for blocks and blocks. It's fancy, but you forget about how you appear, and you have money.  You feel entitled to eat. 

You enter, the hostess comes over after you stand at the counter for an uncomfortably long pause, perhaps they were hoping you'd leave, but you don't. You order coffee and a pastry.  It's a fancy dessert.  After you pay, she suggests that you might want to sit outside. You look behind you at the room, mostly empty, saved a smartly dressed table having drinks, a business lunch. Late. You hoist your pack and walk back out through the doors to the nice, but separate patio. 

You muster up some dignity, as you sit alone and wait. Think to yourself, "You don't know what I'm like in my other life. I'm not like everyone else. We'd probably have things in common. Under better circumstances."  But you don't say it.

In another life you're a: Teacher. Doctor. Lawyer. Own your own business. Bartender. Waiter. Stay-at-home mom. Carpenter. Cook. Artist. Singer. Writer.  You run meetings.  You do volunteer work. You drive a car.  You walk your dog.  Go to concerts.  You remember people's birthdays.  But now you're the same as everyone else they see.  A vagabond, traveler, pilgrim, hiker, taker, entitled.  21 days out, wearing the same clothes, clothes that don't come all that clean in the infrequent washing in the sink.  Clothes and pack straps soaked in days of sweat and miles of dust.  Any sense of stratification has long ago been stripped away, it's easy bonding with fellow travelers.  But you're not with them now.

You sit outside and relish your dessert.  Are you being judged for how you spend your money? After all, you could've had a cheap beer and sandwich like everyone else, but you have the money, and you wanted to treat yourself. You wanted to remember who you used to be.  You want to be the exception, you're not like all the others!  But you are.  You're an exile.  An outsider.  No longer unique, and you have now been cast outside normalcy, outside the city walls.  

You have become the Other.

To be continued (not immediately)...