I stumbled, looking backwards, tripping over my own feet. I fell against a dumpster, from which, the smell was a horrible whiff of rot. I crumbled to the wet ground, and looked at my hands. There wasn’t a mark on them, and yet, collectively, they totaled the front-end of a Crown Vic.
Ottawa
The name flashed, amongst the feelings of those near me. Frustration. Fear. Happiness. Sexual Arrousal. Pleasure. Deep Sorrow and Lonliness.
The weight of the voices and empathic impulses running through me were crushing.
“Jesus,” I wrapped my head in my arms and needed to weep, but a voice interrupted me.
“Hey!”
I jerked up, unconsciously wiping my hands on my sweater to see an old grey-bearded, toothless man pushing a shopping cart down the alley.
“Ya,” I whispered sheepishly.
“You alright?” Ironic, that the only sign of humanity in New York came from a vagabond.
“Not really, no!”
“Ya look like shit, son! Where you off to?”
“Ottawa; but i don’t know where that is,” I admitted.
“It’s capital of Canada, nitwit!”