Sonder (verb): to realize that every person is living their own unique life

Nobody would look his way.

Not at his ragged t-shirt, worn-out shoes, or the torn jeans filled with holes that weren’t a part of a fashion design.

The sun already circled the sky once. There were only about three pitiful coins in the chipped bowl that sat before him, and it didn’t seem like any more would join their lonely outlines.

Every passerby just walked on, as if there wasn’t a hungry man begging them for just enough money to find his next meal. The handsome businessmen decked out in suits and carrying heavy briefcases, the decorated ladies wearing expensive designer brands, even the children absorbed in their lollipops… their vacant expressions were indicative of their lost reverie.

He soundlessly watched the stream of people as they stepped over his body as if it was an extra tile on the street. All these people walked with somewhere to be, somebody to talk to, something to do; they walked with a purpose that he didn’t have.

As the coldness seeped into his tattered clothing with the drooping of the sun, he accepted the realization of his hopeless situation without another word. In a world dictated by ambition, there was no place for a man without any.