I'm watching him sputter conversation about trains, their tracks, the whistles and why not all of them sound the same. He flips his wrist away from him over and over without thinking of it, not noticing when people watch in curiosity. The other arm rests over his shoulder, his fingers lying easily on his neck, making stretches to reach his hair. He sits on the cobblestone in the unbearable heat and motions with his entire body when he speaks. The crowd around him nothing more than blank faces and hushes. Each day he comes he is dressed in old jeans and a black cotton shirt, faded, one hole near the neck just below his left ear. A knitted hat covers to his brow and he taps the sweat beads like bubbles to burst on his fingers.

The crowd steps back when he gets up. It turns away when he steps to the walkway entering the shop where I sit watching him everyday, the faces follow. Next to me he pulls an empty chair and asks for a drink, putting his palm to his eyes so no one can look straight at him. He takes his left arm and rests the palm on his left-side cheekbone to hide the eye that never fully opened after his birth. He covers it from the light leaks that stab him, blind him, cause his screaming. The proprietor brings a chilled glass of water, scratches his beard and runs both hands through his auburn hair. He is standing in front of the group at the door and blinks just a few times until the people look to each other, apologize and turn out. The last to leave, a seven-year old boy who kicks his shoe and mutters 'freak' loud enough to wake King Edward VII. Our delicacy, Charles VI, jolts with electricity, kicking over the table. He tries to dive frantically behind it but stumbles on his first step up and his head slams to the ice and the vehement sound of crushing is atrocious.

I feel nauseous. I grab my coat and rush to the door. Not having the stomach to hear his fit of pain, I can hardly open the door and push myself through the smallest opening I make. Against the window the crowd stands fixed, leaning with hands against the glass. The wind in the town has gotten heavier the last hour and my limbs have done the same. I stumble against the side wall of the shop and sit inside the alley way behind the dumpster where the others won’t catch sight of me.

Under the foot of roof that extends to the building side, the wind pushes harder down and carries sand from the outskirt of the town. The heat, the pressure, my swimming gut - I lay tightening my eyes and let the battering resume. My hair slips between my eyelids and I try to raise my arm to brush the strands away but my hand pushes back and strikes my jaw. I hear the crowd scream and the shop doorbell rings violently. His voice is the only familiar part of the playhouse moment and I hardly understand him through the stutter and his irregular walking rhythm. He becomes louder, then softer, and the crowd pursues him. I think of him stepping softly home, through the wind's madness, and the crowd walking through the madness that will always follow behind him.

My jaw feels swollen but hurts very little. I get up facing the street and the wind pushes on my back. I scamper oddly, running at times, in any direction that keeps my feet from falling out from me.