JUST PASSING THROUGH:

The town where I live, is a melting pot of nationalities, a small pretty town  hugging a turquoise bay  on the Mediterranean. It is not an old town, where old men sit under old olive trees discussing old days, where Spanish grannies sit & gossip in shady doorways, none of the old Spain seen. This town attracts tourists, stag do´s, hen parties, rich Northern pensioners escaping the colder climes of their icy countries. We have the sun here, lots of it, we have cheap booze too, lots of it, the right combination to attract these sort of people.

But there is another type that is drawn towards our town too, for the same reasons, plenty of sun & cheap wine. The hobos, vagabonds, layabouts, idlers, or whatever other names people endow them with. These folk drift in, staying for a day or two, a month or three, but never more than a year at the most. They are usually men, sometimes women, some are Young, some are old, all are dirty, scruffy & needy, all are burnt brown by the Spanish sun. Some tote dirty knapsacks that have seen better days, some push old broken shopping carts, loaded up with all their meagre belongings & their bedding of old cardboard boxes, some are accompanied by tired looking dogs attached to dirty strings around their mangy necks.

They sit in shop doorways, on dirty pavements, on bus-stop benches, begging for meagre droppings into an old tin, odd coins, a kind Word, a passing smile.            They´ve heard it said about them, that they are good-for-nothings, the scurge & dregs of society, yes they have heard it all before, so many times.

These people with sad eyes are off the register, off the grid, out of the equation, they don´t count, they don´t figure. They do not vote, they do not pay, they do not matter, zilch. They roam, wander, traipse, plod & meander, down allyways & sidewalks, slipping through the grids of our thoughts, past our gimpsing glancings, then disappearing into nowhere, only to be replaced by another one like themselves. Their days without family, friends, purpose. It is more than the lack of food & shelter, it is the sense of un-being & being un-loved that is seen within their sad lost eyes.

They are the grandparents, parents, husbands, wives, sons & daughters of someone somewhere in this cruel world. They once belonged, they were once loved, they are a part of us all.