*Yes, the wind is still there. Still blowing. Plodding along lost in a dream like, sleep deficient daze a few pieces of brown garbage blows past, startling me. Fuck. That feeling again. That feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you are walking down a flight of stairs and you miss a step. Not falling, but miss a step, stumble and continue decending. But that leap in your stomach. Three blocks later it looks like the corner I need to turn at. Is it? Yes, there is the fence and just past the chain links the alley that leads to my pack. It gets so heavy. I remember the first few trips… so afraid someone would steal the pack I would carry it around everywhere. Wouldn’t leave anything in the hotel, nothing. Carry that heavy thing in crowds, on busses and trains. Through shopping malls, street markets and into temples. At the end of each day I would have to tend to the cuts on my hips from the pack’s straps rubbing, digging into my flesh. If I was fashion conscious and tucked in my shirts you could have seen the blood stains on the waste of my pants. But I never gave into fashion. I don’t think people would recognize me in a suit. Come to think of it, I think there is a suit at home, buried in a plastic thing to protect it from dust. It must burried in the back, behind the pants that don’t fit anymore. But so no one knew how heavy that thing is. No one saw the blood or the bruises. And that was ok with me. A little secrete I could keep to myself. Knowing I was tough, I could take it. Every time I felt it digging in, cutting a piece of flesh just above, or below, the mark yestrday I smiled (and still do) because I was just getting tougher. Tougher for this, maybe. But just tougher for whatever the future would throw at me.