Extra Strong.

The searing heat is burning the last bit of sense out of his mind.
He is sitting on a step of a house, midtown, his clothes dirty, himself
dirty. A thick grey beard is covering most of his face, his hand is
holding a bottle of extra strong. It's the third today and only just
gone past noon. The heat does the rest, more than twice he is on the
verge of throwing up, but burps instead, his mouth filling with the
sour taste of stomach, he washes it down with another sip. The extra
strong has gone warm and flat but it hides the fear better than some.
His small pig like eyes follow the scurried steps of the pedestrians,
most of which ignore him. He doesn't mind, it's a mutual understanding,
he doesn't bother them and they leave him alone, or mostly they do. At
times, when in groups they attack, suddenly feeling safe to let their
frustrations out on an easy target like himself. They are usually drunk
little shits, the smaller in size the harder they kick the little
bastards. But even if it wasn't for them he rarely felt safe, he
managed to numb the fear, keep it at the back of his mind, simmering,
fed by the extra strong and time itself. He knows there is a state in
which you can freeze time, keep tomorrow from ever happening, stay in a
cocoon.
His is a steady routine, with the same precision a bank clerk would
follow his daily business. It's the only way he can get through. He
crouches by the side of the street sipping the extra strong somehow far
away and then sometimes like in a dream the clouds shift from his mind
and he remembers days long gone.
Like him and the sister playing in the parents garden. Her on the
swing, and the garden full of scents and flavours. There is
butterflies, and the sound of birds tweeting, then there is the
laughter of the sister and him. The voice of the mother, as she tells
them to quiet down, as the father is taking a nap, and then calling
again for them to get inside for dinner. There was never any fear
inside him then. The fear, had come a lot later, after the sister had
gone and the father had lost the job and they had to move and move
again. The other kids he met along the endless journeys, induced some
of the fear, always picking on him for being somehow different. He got
quiet in those days, and when he remembered a single tear left his
eyes, carving its way through his face, disappearing somewhere beneath
his beard, a silent sob escapes from his lips, then drowned with
another sip of the extra strong. The friends he had known had come and
gone, till he realised he was better of being left to himself, quite
capable of sorting out his own business. He coughs, then spits a green
sizable piece of phlegm right on the pavement in front. A lady with
heels swirls away and almost comes down, you can see the disgust on her
face as she walks on. What if, he thinks and laughs to himself,
chuckles in fact so hard that he begins to cough spilling some of the
extra strong on the ground, coughing up more of the phlegm, spitting
and coughing more. Suddenly no air, comes through no more and he drops
the bottle which breaks on the ground in front, the liquid running into
the gutter. With him coughing patting his chest harder, his eyes
bulging, as some of the passers slow to glance at the madman they see.
And he, still not getting any air stretching his hands out for help,
then falling forward on the ground shaking with convulsions. The fear
kicks in good this time, and there isn't anything he can do about it
and then his stomach does the rest by letting go of the extra strong,
with him still gasping for air his face turning blue he takes it all
back inside, down the wrong pipe, but some of it leaking from his mouth
and those that still watch step further away and turn their heads
disgusted by the human misery they witness, but somehow not willing to
help. Another spasm follows and his bowels give way, the stench so vile
that the last onlooker leaves and those still moving along quicken
their steps, or go so far as to cross the street to look on from a
distance.
Then there is the sound of an ambulance, stuck in traffic somewhere,
not in a real rush either, but they get there in the end, just that it
is to late this time, there is nothing to do for them here, but load
him up and take him away. Non of them know who he is or know of the
sister, the mother and father and the childhood he had had in his early
days, when there was no fear or worry in the young lads step. Anything
was possible at the time, but the thing with time is that no one knows
what it got planned and how it pans out in the end.