This Miserable Existence

Icy fingers clawed the nape of the old man’s neck as swirling wind whipped up dust and debris into Jack’s tired weathered face. Eyes stinging and watery, rubbed red and raw from repeated assaults of city detritus, Jack pulled the collar of his threadbare Vinnie’s coat tight against the onslaught. He huddled as best he could into a corner of the open-fronted bus shelter. It provided little by means of any real protection from the storm, nevertheless it proved a vast improvement on the rotting park bench from which he’d awakened on that awful Godforsaken day. Incessant gnawing hunger, his throat painfully parched, Jack found himself fondly reminiscing on the warm bed and full belly of a recent stint in jail. “Better that than this miserable existence?” he pondered. What petty crime might reward him with shelter and three meals a day to see him through the Winter? ’twas a consummation devoutly to be wished.