God's Armory

Sam woke up for what seemed like the millionth time and felt a bit of warmth from the sun, so he threw back the newspapers and slowly sat up. He heard snap, crackle, and pop, pop, pop as he moved. “Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be. Ha! If I were growing old along with someone, we’d both be miserable!”

He resolved not to spend another night on the park bench. He had a crick in his neck again, not to mention several other aches and pains that had become the usual morning companions. He rubbed his neck and looked around. His matted hair and beard stuck out at unflattering angles. If anyone walked through the park, they gave Sam a wide berth. He gave onlookers a good show with his growling and cursing, but he wasn’t half as mean as he looked. He had once been an upstanding citizen with a high paying job. Well, it was a high paying YouTube channel. But YouTube didn’t like his political content. He had gotten demonetized and didn’t have the money to fight in court. That was five years ago. He felt defeated and had become used to life on the street.

“Enough of this!” he yelled, showing all five of his rotting teeth. He crumpled together his newspapers and grumbled loudly, “I’m going to the Armory tonight!” He started to shove the newspapers into a garbage can and then stopped. “I might need these for a nap later,” he said looking around. “And it looks cloudy.” He continued muttering to himself as he crammed the papers under the tarp of his shopping cart and began to amble anyway, through the park