A bag filled with rejects

“Home’s where you go when you run out of homes.”

― John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

It was the end of the workday

My head weighed down by a hulking exhaustion

I was standing in the afternoon line

Staring at a garbage bin

It was full with a cornucopia of the day’s discarded scraps

To-go cups drained of their energy

Tired cans

Empty bags

A man dressed in a faded green jacket

He cut through the line

Nobody objected

He hovered over the bin, inspecting the pile

Disappointed, he compromised, and turned to walk away

His big suitcase dragging behind

The rejects of the day rejected him

The line formed again, nobody objected