another character sketch

Raed had recently lost his only son. Crushed by the unweight of such a tremendous release, Raed was not him. Unlike him, Raed expanded in emptiness, was made of it. Like a sponge, he was completely holed. And Raed's hole seemed boundless; it surrounded him in a hollow presence that was nearly tangible.

In contrast to him, initially you are disheveled by the enormity of Raed; your instinct saying to give him a wide berth. When people pass him on the sidewalk, though the sidewalk is wide and few are traversing it (and though Raed likes to stay close to the buildings, the walls, finding comfort on the edges of things,) they will step into the gutter, or the street. Already Raed had stopped noticing this. Perhaps he never noticed it.

Have you ever noticed how the emptiness of people is often the only thing that keeps them from falling apart? Raed wore buttons: dark shirts with buttons, and a large navy blue coat with more buttons. The smallest of points can still hold things together. The reprimanding 10 am glare off the cement and the buildings rendered his coat unnecessary, but Raed was used to wearing it; had once been used to walking to work in the dark and the damp of the day. That had changed. His long navy coat, that looked like wool but probably wasn't, had not changed. How could you not cling to familiarity in the places where it doesn't burn you?

A big man, Raed still was not as big as the berth–unscrupulously gifted from the rest of us beyond him–would lead you to believe. Big is the wrong word. Raed was broad; his chest and shoulders, his hands, his feet. In high school (in his other life) they called him The Wall. It fit him. Raed was a vast and stubborn bastion of impassibility. What he was, he was. What he felt, he was. What he thought, he was. And he was unchangeable; always convinced of the right, the truth in his ways of thinking.