He had lain there from day to day, wondering what the hell would happen if he suddenly left.  The glass behind him was smeared with grease and soot from his hair, not enough that the glass would turn a murky mix of black and brown, but just enough so that the boxes piled behind it were indistinct.  The concrete ground was cold and wet, which was understandable in the middle of January.  Lines and sloshed mud dotted and smeared the ground around him, dirtying what clothes he owned – a ragged T-shirt hidden underneath layers of dark coats, jackets, and a hat or two, anything to keep out the cold weather that threatened to turn his fingers to ice.  His hair helped, as unkempt as it was.  Its length and oiliness served to eat least keep the heat in, or so he believed.  After all, if fur worked for bears, that must be why humans had so much hair on them.

He stared dejectedly at his hands as more of the grocery store’s customers passed him by.  His fingernails were grubby with soil, as were the gloves that covered his hands.  The gloves he had received a long time ago from a passerby – they were the kind whose fingers were cut off so they didn’t help if it snowed, but it never snowed in California.  He absently rubbed at the edges of the gloves, as if the stains could simply be determinedly scrubbed off.  His eyes rose every now and then as another person walked by without saying a word, sometimes glancing in his direction in acknowledgement or holding their nose tightly between well-polished fingernails.  The grocery store behind him drew in a lot of customers for a local place.  People here were loyal, but as he observed, rich and stingy as hell.

Everyday for a month he had sat in front of this grocery store, begging for money or anything that could help feed him.  Sometimes that meant food; other times it meant beer.  Most of the time it meant nothing.  He would arrive at the homeless shelter (always on time, because if you weren’t on time, you weren’t getting a bed), empty-handed, shooting his best charming smile at Glenda before she grinned and handed him beddings, saying, “I don’t know why you insist on sitting there, Charlie, you know you never get anything out of it.  You know where the kitchen is; God knows you look like you need a decent meal today.”  She was always joking about how thin he was, probably because she always offered him as much food as he wanted and he always turned down half the stuff she offered.  There was always another mouth to feed anyway.

Thinking about the food he would get later had his mouth watering, and he stroked his growing mustache and beard in boredom.  What time was it?  When would he be able to get off his butt and head over to the shelter?  When could he escape from the daily routine?  The shuffling to and fro because at the shelter there was food, and here he could at least smell more food?  When could he stop the endless wondering and waiting, and seeing if he could live through this day and this day alone?  When could he start hoping and dreaming of the day after today?  What was that day called again?

“Excuse me, mister?”

He looked up at small child.  She looked to be about six years old.  She was brunette, and had the biggest, most enchanting green eyes he had ever seen.  She smiled hesitantly, holding a plastic grocery bag in her tiny hands.  He blinked silently at her, wondering where this girl’s mother was until he saw a woman standing off to the side, an umbrella in one hand and a similar bag of groceries in the other.  His eyes turned back to the little girl.

“Here.”  She held out the bag to him and motioned (in a very unchildlike manner) for him to take it.  “Happy new year, mister.”

He blinked again and peered inside the bag.  The food that was there had him salivating more than he had ever imagined, and his stomach growled loudly in anticipation.  He looked in the girl’s eyes again and glanced at the mother.  This could be a trick.  Was he being punk’d?  He wasn’t born yesterday, didn’t they know – he knew the kinds of pranks these youngsters could be pulling these days.  That damn Ashton Kutcher!  Then again those rich bastards probably deserved something coming to them.  But this girl and her mother behind her seemed alright.  What could they have possibly had against him?  He took the bag hesitantly.

The girl grinned and spoke again.  “I thought you mighta been hungry.  Hope you like it, mister.”  With that, she turned and skipped back to her mother, who smiled at her daughter and looked over her head to flash an almost apologetic, embarrassed smile at him.  She nodded once before walking to the parking lot and presumably to her car.  The girl turned back, grinning and waving at him before following suit.

He stared at the bag in happy surprise, absently rubbing at the plastic, wondering at the warmth the bag gave off, and thought if there were still people like that in the world, it wouldn’t be long until he remembered the day after today.