Close to the edge

How close are we to the edge? There are a lot of people who leave the everyday lives they live, the habitual rambling day in and day out and walk out into the world to be forgotten in the place of the homeless. The banks take their houses and cars. The personal stuff gets thrown out on the street by the deputy sheriffs to be picked up by people in cars passing by. They might see something that appeals to them, not as a memorial to the person who owned them, but just as something different that catches their eye like a bird looking for something shiny. The spouses go off, collect public assistance or live with a relative or maybe even go on to live by themselves with a bitterness receding or growing, depending on their respective personalities. If there are little children, they go off with the remaining spouse. Or if they are adults, they go off to build their own castles of habituality, wondering what happened to dad or mom. Someday taking a trip on the internet or through the police to try to find connection. To find explanations.

And the person himself? Drifting along with the weather. Living in carboard boxes or on top of discarded paper and trash. Showing up in the morning or evening at a church soup kitchen to eat a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of soup. Their brainpans draining of memory or the ability to do. Depression wasting the ambition away until there is nothing. Just a shuffle and a mumble to a stranger. A mumble returned. An averting of eyes. Is it fear that causes us to turn away? Do we see ourselves in the shadows? How close are we to the edge? How little would it take to place us in that forgotten world?