Alcatraz

His skin is leathery from the years of battering by the elements, it's taken on a new colour, that of layers of dirt, dust and the grim of this putrid city. Those once pearly white teeth, now shades of yellow and brown. What was hair now an untamed mane. Clothes filthy, tattered, but enough to afford him warmth on these cold streets on those lonely nights - his pungent odor of consternation a potent advocate for solitude. The soles of his feet harden and cracked from these streets he pounds daily in search of his next high.

This once strong productive member of our each man is an island society, now a junkie, soliciting to feed his need to continue the escape from a society which he did not understand - and did not care to understand him. A society which pays scant regard to the real needs of the real people. So void of substance that we create something out of nothing to keep us continually occupied doing something for nothing.

And as everyone is preoccupied in their own spheres we roll by each other oblivious to what is really going on - losing ourselves, wasting minutes, squandering the gift of life.

He escaped the cycle of that incapacitating repetitive sphere - marking time; but his escape was temporary, artificial. With each passing minute he seeks out his escape again, at the other end of a pipe, a needle, a joint.

What he found was an illusion, a new cycle, a darker sphere. "Boss gimme a coin for some food." Those were the words from the junkie, trying to nourish himself - to give him just enough energy to return to his perpetual prison of escape.