Asking for Change

At the end of his fingertips, you could see that he hadn’t been able to clip his nails for a long while. He wore a long beard and a bone-tight skin around his body. You could tell that he rarely ate and when he did, nothing would make his sickness better. He vomited, not because he wanted to lose weight, but because he wasn’t used to eating anymore.

He was homeless, but never hopeless. Every night, before he went to bed he counted his blessings for the day and asked god to forgive him for not working to his potential. He sat at this corner every single day asking for change, but when they put down a dollar bill or even 25 cents he would stand up and hand it right back to the person in a kindly manner and say, “Thank you, but no thank you.”

The man who sits on this corner never asks for cigarettes, nor booze, not even for a meal. All he ever asked for since he’s been in this world was change. They only tossed him cents.