Faith flavors a fall to her knees with a gasp for the man spread stained on the steps of the city beautification office. Roses bloom from his ears. “How could we put these slopes on his shoes?”, she wonders and somewhere, a widow whimpers.
From a shop not far from the crossing of disbelief and death, a scream; a son rushes to the scene. “My father believes in dying alone” he says. Faith snorts mucus on her sleeve. “He needs a hand to hold in his passing,” she says. “He needs to trust.”
Son pulls his mouth down from the corners of his concern, but the crowd wobbles, will not take a side. A pottery worker blows dust from his lips. “I’ll put the coins on his eyes,” he cries. The sky cracks an egg. Faith calls out in the hard breath of daggers. “Who will be my witness? Who will ratify my belief?”
The man on the steps mates his neck with the stone, alone. Evening blows a soft tuba through the streets.