Created in May, 2017

St. Louis 

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Following dinner with a friend one night, I decided to take a walk. Though unfamiliar with this part of St. Louis, the street seemed busy enough and the lovely springtime cool-warm air felt inviting. 

 

Some minutes along I noticed, scattered among weeds and litter surrounding the chain-link fence of an empty lot, some plastic cards. An ID, a few credit cards, a laundry card. 

 

"Oh," I thought as I gathered them, "A robbery happened right here..." Looking up, I realized how the street had changed, and that I didn't actually know where I was. I turned back towards the restaurant and went home. 

 

Sure, this may be a complete invention of my imagination--or it may be an untraceable glimmer of intuition, but I couldn't help but wonder: had this bad thing not happened to this young man--and not all that bad as the evidence indicated only cash was taken--perhaps something truly horrible could have happened to me. 

 

That night this collage made itself through me. In the morning I mailed it anonymously to the address on his license along with the rest of his cards.