Biblical? - a flash fiction story
Peter didn't mention the bible, but it was as if he'd leapt straight from its pages.
Kimberly A. Fader
7/30/20255 min read
From a distance, Peter looked biblical, out of place and time, on a bustling street corner in Connecticut. He wore layers of muted clothing, and his ever-present beige blanket draped around his broad shoulders. Long natural dreadlocks with strands of gray framed his bearded face. He waved to Sarah, the homeless shelter social worker. It wasn’t a frantic “I need something” wave. He just raised his hand, acknowledging her presence before crossing the street at an unhurried pace.
Peter was well-known at the shelter, and although he didn’t hang out with any particular crowd, no one messed with him. Sarah never noticed him napping or debating on the park benches. If he used mood-altering substances, it didn’t show. He didn’t act out or nod off in the Shelter Drop-In Center. His demeanor was consistent: steady, strong, soft-spoken, and observant. Sometimes, he rendered a gentle chuckle or a discreet nod toward brewing trouble. At the end of each day, he helped staff clean up, scooping up the abandoned coffee cups and empty sugar packets and wordlessly holding out his hand to take the broom or trash bag.
One evening, Sarah stayed late to prepare for the January visit from the Connecticut Department of Mental Health, the entity that approved the grant funds for the Drop-In Center. Competing with the day-to-day push and pull of acute human needs, paperwork sometimes fell behind. Sarah hoped that once all the clients headed to the soup kitchen and to secure a bed at the shelter before the curfew, and her staff went home, she could finally focus, uninterrupted, to get things in order. While the sun was still up, she moved her car closer to the Drop-In Center. She didn’t want to walk too far alone in the dark winter night.
Finally finished at 9:00, Sarah surveyed the street and, seeing no one, unlocked the door and stepped outside. However, the second Sarah felt the click of the relocked the Drop-In Center door, a low voice came up too close behind her.
“Hey, Miss Sarah, you’re working late.” She turned to see the wild eyes and skeletal face of a man nicknamed Squirrel. Squirrel flitted in and out of the Drop-In Center regularly, snatching up a donut or an oversugared coffee and then back out, seemingly unable to settle. She didn’t know if he acquired his nickname before or after developing his dependence on crack cocaine. Crack stimulates an intense 15 minute high that drops the user crashing down into a hellish despair. Squirrel was evidence of that. He always looked on edge and had a history of assaults and robberies to document the desperation to feed his addiction. “You think you could spare a few dollars? I didn’t make it back to the shelter in time.”
Sarah knew this was just his opening line, but before she could respond, another figure emerged from the shadows. It was Peter. He didn’t say anything, but Squirrel took one look and scampered away.
“Thank you, Peter.”
“You shouldn’t be working alone this late.”
“You’re right as always,” Sarah said. “Thank you for looking out for me.”
Peter nodded.
As Sarah drove away, she saw him in her rearview mirror, walking slowly down the street.
Later that night, a realization woke her from her deep sleep, and she sat upright in her warm bed; Peter missed the curfew at the shelter. He had stayed behind, waiting in the cold, to protect her. She prayed someone at the shelter bent the rules and let him in. So much depended on who was working that night.
To repay him for all his help, Sarah privately presented Peter with new, thick flannel shirts, jeans, socks, and boots. He accepted the gifts graciously but continued to wear his same old clothes. In time, she spotted the new clothing on other homeless men.
Peter had never asked for anything before, so Sarah did her best when he whispered, “Would you please get me some rubbing alcohol and elderberry juice?” Perhaps it was an old school remedy he remembered from his childhood down south. He eyed the elderberry supplement she found at the drugstore quizzically but shrugged and mixed it with the rubbing alcohol. Then he soaked the corner of his blanket, closed his eyes, and dabbed his chest with the concoction. At that point, Sarah could see past the layers of clothing and hair and noted Peter’s thinning frame and protruding collar bones.
When Peter’s health did not improve, Sarah convinced him to come with her to the hospital. She knew they rolled the dice going to the city Emergency Department in the afternoon. The packed waiting room foretold the impatient care he would encounter. Despite Sarah’s advocacy, Peter received a cursory exam.
“How much has he had to drink today?” The tawny-skinned nurse asked, not bothering to address Peter directly nor hide her disdain. The pasty young doctor stood stiffly beside her and wore a pinched squeamish expression.
“Not a drop. He's been applying rubbing alcohol for chest pain.”
"Rubbing alcohol for chest pain," she echoed with a snort.
Sarah looked at Peter, seeing him in this nurse's jaded eyes, in his weakened state. She had to fight back every impulse to get right in the face of this snotty nurse and doctor team, and demand better treatment. But she knew that her outrage, however justified, would not help him. They held all the cards. They refused her pleas for further testing and discharged him, labeling his reported pain as drug-seeking.
Peter refused to see another doctor, and soon stopped eating. By the end of the month, he was dead. The shelter called an ambulance in the middle of the night to take him from his thin cot back to the same hospital. The official cause of death was organ failure. It might have happened anyway, but Sarah hoped the E.D. staff were at least questioned about their negligence. Without the fear of a lawsuit maybe no one took their time.
Peter's biological family could not be located, but on the day of his service the Outreach Church was full of people with their own Peter stories.
The pastor shared her experience. Every Wednesday, the Presbyterian church offered an off-site service in an otherwise vacant storefront. The auxiliary church had been the pastor's idea, but despite months of work, attendance remained virtually nonexistent. Feeling discouraged but trying to stay hopeful, the pastor stood at the window on Wednesdays and waved to people passing by. One day she saw Peter outside and she smiled, beckoning him to join her in the empty church. He smiled back, but stood still, and, imitating her gesture, motioned for her to come out and join him on the sidewalk. The pastor renamed the auxiliary the Outreach Church.
With that new outlook, the Outreach Church blossomed. Peter led people to the door, although he never entered himself. But, she remembered him waving each time he passed until the day he disappeared from the streets like “footprints in the sand.”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.