But for the grace of gravity and gall

You were cold and tired but you couldn't sit down at the bench because it was decidedly occupied, an ancient and decrepit bum curled up in a nest of newspaper and filth, dead to the world, perhaps all but dead in the unpoetic sense. So you stood with your back to his labored breathing and were momentarily crushed by the realization of every sin of this bad old world and the overwhelming guilt and culpability of your own silence and complicity in the face of this naked and unironic manifestation of the ultimate condition a fallen planet demanded of a sacrificed batallion of its inhabitants.

In that moment this knowledge is given to you: that bum breathes in peace and breathes out contentment, that bum lies in the palm of Gad and enjoys the only real freedom and rest and peace that exists, anywhere on earth. He sleeps a sleep the rich man only dreams of, he sleeps a sleep that you will never know as long as you need a bell to wake you in the morning to take up once again the desperate race to avoid his fate, he sleeps like Gad himself, catching twenty quick winks (in which timeless instant a plague of nations rises and is felled like grain), complete in his omnipotence and not simply needing nothing but in an eternal state of grace that Wills not to need a single thing. You are priviledged to read between the lines of yesterday's paper what was not written for you but which is always given freely, this:

"all the flashy cars
all the new leather jacket
all the flashy brand
all the high priced restaurants
all the pretty people
with their high style hair cuts and visa cards
...don't got, what he got"

There with but the grace of Gad go ye.

klik if you demand tedious explanations of every little thing.