A Hard Way Forward

I may have been incarcerated; at the very least I was lost. I was in a shanty town that was in the middle of an industrial area. I was new to this and was miserably confused and just plain miserable. I did not know what I could do or what I couldn’t do, I felt that I was being chased all of the time and I did not know what was expected of me.

It seemed everywhere I turned there was a houses with holes in the walls. There were dirty blankets lying on the ground.There was dirt and mud and grease on walls and on the ground. People were unkempt and unhealthy.And there was vermin.

I was wandering around trying to get an idea of what I was to do or how I was to live. I was walking down an alley and there was a shot that rang out. I saw a man running and saw the pistol that he had dropped. I saw various people within a block or so and was hesitant but I reached to pick up the pistol. I touched the gun and at that time a police SUV came rumbling down a nearby road and I could hear the lady inside reporting to dispatch that I had “Touched the gun butt.” I began to run away, making my way around a hut that was on the corner of the alley. The SUV was catching up so I made my way through a hole in the wall of the building I was nearest to.

I checked out the broken down shelter’s interior and made my way to another door on another street side. I exited and immediately started to look for a place to hide. There was a few folks lingering on that side and they could see my need but found little they could do to help. I attempted to hide in an old oil barrel that was standing nearby and reached to get into it and felt a gooey substance on my hands and looking at the bottom there was too much refuse in it to allow me to hide. I kept running and at one point was behind a building in an industrial complex.There was a large machine in the open field nearby moving equipment around. I got on top of a small stack of metal and could see that workers had noticed my presence and evidently did not appreciate it. This was obviously no place to gain shelter so I kept running and went around the building to its front side.

I finally ducked into another room in another shanty and made it into an entrance-way. I took a door that led off of it into a small room where there was a dirty bed. I realized then that this was a room for prostitution and that the ladies that were hanging out front were the ones that used the room when the need arose. I left and ran some more.

I later found myself in a restaurant where there was a table of four men with suits on that were discussing the day’s affairs. I looked at them and asked them how they could possibly be in the clothes and positions that they obviously were and they told me that I would make it also, that I was smart and that I would seize the opportunities when they were right. I questioned this heavily and asked how I could seek that out and they made it plain that I need not seek that I would see the opportunity when it was apparent.