He shuffled down the street, a goon bag slung like a limp promise over his shoulder. His fingers looped around the black plastic spigot, holding on tightly. The silvery sheen of the bag glistened in the moonlight, suggesting a quality that simply wasn’t there. Anyone noticing would have assumed that he was just another homeless alcoholic, and they would not have been wrong.

Where he came from and his story, no one knew for sure and few really cared. He was just another homeless person to avoid. He had stopped to talk to some do-gooder once just last week and it felt good to tell someone the way it was, but it never changed anything. Anyway, did they really know what it was like, or was it all just practice and pretence?

He paused for a moment to reflect on what could have been, what should have been and what had been lost. He tugged at the goon bag just to be sure it was still there and he smiled in anticipation of the warmth that its contents would bring. He was tempted to have a swig, but his arthritic fingers were stiff and it would have been difficult to open the spigot while walking. No matter, there would be time later.

He knew where he was going; more or less anyway. He would know when he got there as his like equipped ‘mates’ would be hanging there. For him, this was the good life. Every night, much the same. Talk shit, drink piss, pass the bag, more shit, more piss, and so on, until oblivion set in

The numbers had grown a bit thin of late, down from 10 or so a couple of months ago to perhaps 6 or 8 on a good night. He didn’t really notice, and he was not into counting, just drinking.

The goon bag well did its job, and he collapsed pretty much the same time as the others. Not that he could remember.

Sometime in the next day, perhaps it was morning, he awoke. His alcohol addled brain failed to comprehend. He tried to move but he couldn’t. Nothing seemed to work, except for his eyes and hearing, and even that, not so well.

The lights were bright, but he could still see blurred white figures as they flashed by. He could also hear a somewhat garbled conversation. Something about ‘suitability for the program’.

A clinical voice then sounded. ‘Just not. Not suitable’. The voices became a little clearer, and he could hear something like: ‘Terminal cancer. Not good to the program. The director will not be happy’.

The next thing he knew, it was evening, and he was lying on the grass where he and his mates usually hung out. His head was resting on a warm silver pillow; one that sloshed and gurgled as he moved. Smiling at the realisation, he turned over so he could do battle with the spigot and take a well-deserved swig.

His memory of bright lights and strange beings faded as his ‘silver pillow’ did its job.