Sometimes life is long, sometimes life is hard, and sometimes life just falls into place as you go along.

I was sprawled out in the back of the bus, reading a book. It was dark outside, as it usually was at twelve o’clock. The florescent lights flickered around me and the words on the pages seemed to blend in with the interior of the bus.

To kill a mocking bird would be a fine book to read if I was snuggled up in bed, but even a page turner like Harper Lee couldn’t distract me from dark thoughts that drifted in the white light of the bus. I was the last person on, and even as I was placing the book back inside my satchel the bus driver turned around and started shouting at me to get off because this was the last stop on her schedule.

It was only twelve thirty, the buses weren’t supposed to quite running until one AM. I hated it when the bus drivers were early on their rounds. Other people liked the bus to go faster; I often heard them complaining, but that wasn’t like me. I didn’t have anywhere to go, and the interior of a bus looks extremely attractive when the alternative is long hours huddled with homeless people in the dark, frozen alleys of New York City.

I still talked about the ‘homeless’ like they were different from me, when by definition we were both stuck in the same box. There was something that separated me from the average beggar however, it was my choice.

I chose this life you see, I chose a life of no responsibly, of no restrictions and thousands of roads inviting me to walk down them. But when I asked for freedom all I found were different kinds of chains to bind me to the same streets everyone walks down, only this time I don’t have any money or a coat to wear.

Nobody understands that I won’t take their cash, that I don’t want a job. I tell them that if I can’t have freedom, they should at least let me choose my prison.

I did find good things in my new life. I couldn’t eat what I wanted, wear what I wanted, and sleep where I wanted, but I could walk where I wanted. I had walked all the way from Chicago, to California, to Canada, to the east cost and down its jagged border to where I found myself now, lost amidst the homeless of New York City. I didn’t have a job, but that freed my time. I didn’t have a girl, but then again I didn’t have to worry about cheating. I didn’t have any new books to read, but I was always finding new things to fill the pages of my own life.

I stopped by the curb and saw a note submerged in the ice. It was a blank check, for one grand, like someone had put it there just for me. It was so tempting; it meant a warm bed, a full belly, a month of comfort if I used it wisely. I shook my head. Didn’t the world understand that I didn’t want charity? I didn’t want comfort, just freedom.

I dropped the check into the snow for some other man to happen upon. For myself I continued onto the road, unsure of where it would take me, not caring where I might end up.