Not dead yet

It was common for me to spend days at a time alone down by the railroad tracks or to go visit some other part of town. My central points were usually a SRO gone bad that some friends of mine lived in, or the park.

One time I had been gone for 3 or 4 days - wandering in my own little world with little care for anything happening anywhere. When I came back to the SRO, I met someone on the stairs who said they were happy to see that I was not really dead.

I was kinda confused by that, but wrote it off to their distorted reality when high. I understand how that happens....

When I got to my friend's room, however, I understood what the other person had said. It seems there was another homeless woman named Barbara that hung out in a different part of town. She had been found dead in a shed in someone's back yard a couple of days prior and the story had been in the newspaper.

The only homeless person my friends knew named Barbara was me, so naturally they thought I was the one who had been found.

I heard that there was talk of who was going to go and try to identify the woman to see if it really was me - but I don't know what happened with that. I know that a woman I knew from Before almost called my mom when she read the story.

Rumors of my death were (and still are) premature.....