Every person is worth it, whoever they are and wherever they come from; then, if we go into behavioral details, we'll see. And with all this, there is the homeless person outside of any schedule. Inhabiting chance and the elements. And from when he thought he was invincible until now that he is already in the age of pills, a whole biography to discover. Temporary owner of a doorway, an ATM, a corner, or behind bars and in the protection of a closed business, a lobby... Like him, and her, more than 4,800 people in Barcelona, according to the Fundació Arrels. A failure for everyone. A social defeat.
The dark complexion carved by hours and days in the open. The meek and afflicted look. Dismasted, at night it will be covered with newspaper sheets and a cardboard pillow. Always the same clothes pickled by years and grease, with the luster that dirt gives when it becomes odorless and old – with “trend”, an unscrupulous person would say. Around him, waste of the essentials, traces left by those who have other, kinder lives. The leftovers of the leftovers. With rough hands. Grief in the nails. Mismatched socks and loaded with unrecognizable old bags: all his luggage. The only possible one.
He is a character without literature, in any case, the bitter residue of a society that is shipwrecked. He is, they are, destitute people who, drowned in their exclusion, speak to us, whether we like it or not, about ourselves, about illness, luck, madness, injustice and inequality. About how personal and collective circumstances influence some of us to be more than our destiny. Or less. Of the ax blows to the soul or memory. And the looks? An exchange of embarrassed glances. We look without seeming to do so, as if from the side. We look without wanting to see, because what is not seen does not exist. An atavistic shame stumbles upon us. Never has a dissimulation been so real and perceptible.
It is as if when the world was organized the existence of these beings was not foreseen. Something blames us. And of all human characteristics, guilt is the most painful. The most inevitable. The most devious.
