Thursday

I spotted this guy in the park, mumbling to himself under a tree, occasionally gesticulating to no one in particular. I walked over to him, introduced myself. He introduced himself as Thursday, invited me to sit and we started chatting about life. After about 5 minutes in he said he apologised for getting confused and then the conversation went more slowly. Thursday was a nice guy who had seen some horrible stuff that broke his mind and eventually robbed him of his ability to navigate through modern day life. Now at the bottom and on the street, Thursday spends his days drunk, trying to forget his time in the military, the jail time he served for shooting someone in LA and his stint at a mental institution in Colorado.

Walking through the downtown area of San Diego, I saw many people who looked lost. It was as if life itself had run over them and left dazed and confused. A great deal of the people sitting or shuffling around the streets looked as if they had lived there for some time. Badly camouflaged bottles in brown paper bags. Shopping trolley and rubbish bags full of all their worldly possessions. After travelling through a bunch of third world countries, poverty is such a different experience when the person asking for help speaks English and has blue eyes. I visit these "rich" countries like USA and England and see more homeless, lost souls and broken human beings than I did in places like Mexico and China.

People in charge of things, please invest more time and energy into mental health programs. Don't let Thursday be our tomorrow.