Total Control

"Hey guys, you mind helping me out?"

I raised my head from the book that I was reading, and looked to where I heard the voice. There was a homeless man a few yards from my bus stop trying to pick up all the pieces of his makeshift home. Cardboard walls were bunched up in his hands, and what few things he held onto besides those were strewn about on the ground. Some were starting to roll away or be blown by the wind.

The only people next to me either did not notice or paid no attention. The grandpa next to me dug his face further into his news paper, the mother next to me went back to feeding her kid, and the blonde teen in front of me tilted her head back into her phone. I had been glancing at the blonde's ass in front of me for the past few minutes, raising my eyes between flipping pages or when I was bored, but I already knew nothing was going to happen between us. She didn't even know my name, and she was way out of my league. Still, no one seemed to notice the homeless man besides me. He noticed my eyes flick back to him and he smiled, teeth uncharacteristically white against his tanned skin.

"I know you saw me! Please...help? This is all that I have left."

Something other than his voice was telling me to help, and although under any other circumstances I wouldn't have helped, I closed my book without dog-earing the page and stood up and sighed. "Yeah I'll help out, sorry about that." The bus wouldn't be here for another hour or two anyways.