The Remainders

I thought of all the times back home when we drove past homeless people. People standing at parking lot exits, or huddled in doorways, or pushing shopping carts down busy streets. We acted like they weren’t there. Like they were invisible.

I should have been invisible too. But Magdalena offered me free food and kind words every day. Reza let me use his bathroom. Fatima gave me smiles. Quang gave me a job. And none of them had any reason to. Magdalena had recovered from a stroke, Reza risked his job to help me, Fatima was a refugee from war-torn Syria, and Quang came up from nothing to manage a store. Yet they all treated me like I was a human being. Even assholes like Need Beer acted like I took up space.

Reseda was indeed a weird place.