He was back again at the dinner table. His mother, father and sister were sitting around him, eating. The sound of the TV in the other room droning at a low volume. Looking at the faces of his family around him, he reached for a bowl of mashed potatoes but they were just out of his grasp. Then his mother turned to him and said, “Look at this mother fucker, just shining.”
His eyes popped open. A few yards from him, walking away, two people looked back at him, one of them laughing. He sat up, pushing himself against the stone entryway of Citizens bank downtown. The same dream, still haunting him nonstop. No matter what he did to his mind or body, that dream always came back.
He grabbed his bag and threw on a jacket before wandering to his spot where he’d hold out a cup and shake it for spare change. In the tourist spots, he always made enough to at least buy a sandwich from McDonalds but he was out of his potions and elixirs that helped him forget. Not even a beer in his possession.
“Look at this mother fucker, just shining.” The comment played back in his mind. Someone returning home from a long night of partying must have seen the print on his shirt. A black t-shirt with silver glittery print that read Shine. It was just a shirt. He grabbed it from a donated bag of clothes behind the Salvation Army store. He never liked going into the store because it was usually filled with kids in their teens and twenties laughing and trying on old clothes for fun.
Whilst making a living... 