As I am sitting here in the library minding my own business with empty tables around, I see two strange men walking down the aisle towards me. Dirty clothes with untamed facial hair and a distinct smell of cigarettes and unwashed clothes. It’s obvious these two friends are homeless and only have each other in this world of theirs. One comes behind me to sit on the right side of the table while the other stays on the opposite side of the table.
It appears as if this is their first time in a library because they were definetly not using their inside voices. I know I sound like a cranky librarian who’s been working in a library for the past 30 years but it was quite annoying. I know they meant no harm and I do feel bad for them, however I am still trying to figure out the reason why they came in here. As their conversation went on it was hard to focus on what I was doing so I kind of sat back and just listened to what they had to say. Zombie like motions and ways of communicating. One of the guys was fiddling on his phone as the other was trying to tell a story about one of his experiences in jail. The story was dumb and the other guy let out a weak laugh as if he wasn’t even paying attention to the story.
Anyways, they were here for about 5 minutes before talking about meeting up with one of their other buddies and I kind of just sat there thinking about where they could possibly be going. Are they going to go shoot up under a tree somewhere and lay there for the next week? I truly do feel bad for these people because of the way they are treated in society. My initial reaction was disgust and emberasment towards them. But as I sat at the table listening to them, I thought about their lives before having a life on the streets. Did they choose this way of life? Or were there certain circumstances in their lives that led them to this life. Did they start taking drugs to the point to where a sober normal life was not suffice enough?
I’m not suggesting anything negative towards these people, I just wonder why. Why is it that we look at these people in disgust without even knowing the true story behind why? Why
