Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-10319977-20160102141602/@comment-10319977-20160104235309

Updated version of the story:

Growing up with a single mother and three half-sisters, all of which were younger than myself, as well as never having a vehicle to travel anywhere and thus having to walk to school, the grocery store, etc. in the blistering cold forced me to grow up quite fast. It also gave me a lot of empathy for others, especially those less fortunate than myself.

You see, no matter what struggles I went through, I've always had a home, and despite getting fed up with them more often than not, I've always loved my family very much. This is why I've always empathized with the homeless. Not only are they lacking in obvious basic necessities: food, water, shelter, but they would either have to be completely disowned by their family or have none left to take them in, and that must be a very scary thing. However, all my feelings changed one night while I was walking home from the grocery store.

I was walking down the dimly lit road with my grocery bag in hand. It really wasn't ominous considering the steady, albeit somewhat infrequent flow of cars. That was until I walked past a nearly pitch black alley-way and suddenly, out of nowhere, a low voice groaned out my name. Needless to say I was terrified, and froze in place for what must have been minutes, until sense started to take over me again. Figuring my mind was just playing tricks on me, I started to move again and once more, froze in fear as the voice rang back out.

Now my heart was thudding, the beat growing faster and faster as I heard the voice start to repeatedly call out my name, closer and closer until finally, a large man wearing an over-sized, dirt covered jacket and straggly jeans emerged from the shadows and grabbed me by the shoulders, looking straight at me with his wild, glossed over eyes. He kept repeatedly mumbling my name in excitement, the stench of his foul breath flooding into my nostrils as I struggled not to vomit.

This was too much for me. I somehow found enough strength to snap out of my fear and push the man off of me, dropping my grocery bag and immediately breaking into a sprint towards home. I never looked back.

A couple days later I found my mother in the kitchen reading the newspaper. At first I didn't pay her any more attention than usual as I made myself breakfast. I had since gone back to the store to get groceries in the daytime. It wasn't until I heard her sniffling as she set down the paper and made her way to her bedroom that I took an interest in what she had been reading.

It was an article in the obituaries section about a homeless man, the same homeless man I had run into a couple nights before. Only this time he looked a lot more cleaned up, like the picture had been taken a long while back. The description read "Ex war veteran *name exempt* found dead outside *name of company exempt*. Police reported likely cause of death to be suicide."

Reading this information caused a lump to form in my throat. It wasn't because I was having flashbacks to the night of the encounter. It wasn't because he was so close to committing his own suicide when I encountered him.

It was because he partially looked like me.

It was because he had my last name.


 * End of story*

If this gets on the site, the only issue is the lack of a title.