the immigrant

for all the acknowledgment that he gets from the passing crowd he may as well be invisible. he stands in the middle of the tiled corridor dragging a dirty and malodorous mop backwards across the floor. there is a trail of shiny wetness before him. a man walks pass him leaving dirty footprints where he had just cleaned seconds ago. with dead eyes he goes over those spots again and mops them up. minutes later a young couple walks pass leaving more prints. his shoulders sag and drawing a deep breath, he retraces his steps to try to clean the marks away.

a man leaves his home and everything familiar to try to make a decent living in a strange land. a man armed only with a dream to alter the hand that life has given him. at the start of his journey he is a pioneer full of wild energies and improbable hopes. in the end he is a shadow of himself, a sad empty husk, a dried dead leaf floating which ever way the wind blows. the story of the immigrant is one of despair and dashed hopes.