On the sidewalk standing in the rain the old man is a wounded dove. Longish white hair: wet feathers grounded in a storm. The rain is heavy and repeats itself, like buckets of water thrown out of windows.
The old man stands there holding a memory or a wish. Under the streetlight his wet hair glistens like tinfoil. The downpour is a creature thatβs eating him up.
Darkness projects from a deserted apartment building. The ground floor windows and doors are boarded, nailed shut. It appears dead, like an old disease, or stripped, like a despoiled tomb. Its bricks cracked and crumbled, wooden casings dry rotted and helpless. Painted in bold red across the boarded front entrance, a graffiti-message: Girls Rule.
Looking back at the old man, he stands the way a king stands alone when doubting himself. Dark crawls around him. The old man stares at the building. He is motionless, in memory. Rain gallops over him.
Now the rain is as heavy as mucus and with his tiny body the old man shuffles away into the dark and gradually disappears like a casket being covered with earth.