The man looked neither young nor old, possibly in his late 50s. He sat stooped on a wooden bench in front of the coffee shop, and the young woman thought he seemed sad. Profoundly. She could just walk on by but pulled up short and said hello. 
 

He looked up, surprised by her unexpected greeting. Most people, especially pretty young girls like this one, did not seem to notice him. He felt invisible in this altered skin that was apparently his own. Baggy eyes, thinning hair. Liver-splotched hands. He did his best to return a forced smile but his face was mostly unable to comply, stuck in a new permanent downturn. 

"Why are you so sad?" her eyes were blue and large and innocent beneath a stylish sweep of black bangs. "Have you lost your wife? A child?"

Her directness startled him. How bad did he look? Had he sunk lower than he knew? "No, nothing that bad. It's just that I...I...have no place to go, day after day. People need someplace to go, to live out their lives being productive. I lost my job two years ago. " He had not spoken this honestly to his wife or children, but now before a stranger the truth just blurted out and it felt good to speak out loud. Lately most of his conversations were circling anxieties within himself.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I work as a coffee barista around the corner. You should come there.  There are many people out of work who hang out and I slip them a free coffee when I can. I'm late... " she hurried off with someplace to go.

That would be nice, he thought as she dashed around the corner, gone as in a dream. What dreams must she have?  She looked well educated. He knew now he was too old to be hired doing anything similar to what he had done before. Somehow the workplace had chewed through much of his former life, his mental capacity. He forced himself to get up every morning, shower, shave, put on a sportcoat and tie and head out, with no place to go, among the young invincibles who could not see him. They knew nothing about failure. Or death. The worst were the smug ones who interviewed him for the occasional menial job opening, uninterested in who he had been. He like a birch tree, bending beneath the weight of a life lived, a snow-burdened branch trying not to snap. 

The streets clanked with the sounds of shopping carts, the homeless pulling found money, empty bottles and cans, along the cobblestone streets. 

The sound of the Great Recession he thought. He knew he needed a place to go, and soon.