The past few days I've scribbled furiously in my notebook, instead of writing publicly. Usually, when this happens, my public writing spaces out because I don't feel the urge to write. Yesterday, however, something happened.
In the afternoon, a bunch of ambulances and police cars showed up in front of the office. Surely it was about the homeless encampment next door. Two weeks ago someone on /r/madrid posted a photo of this, speculating that these were illegal immigrants because there's a government office for refugees with long lines nearby.
We pass this encampment daily on our way to get lunch. There's rarely people there at lunch time, though one time we were coming back from lunch and we saw a Spanish man stumbling on the street, before crawling into a tent. From the way he stumbled it was obvious to me it was not alcohol, it looked as if his legs were failing him. Though I've never seen anything like it before, from descriptions I've read I think he was he was experiencing a ketamine hole.
When I came out of work, the ambulances and police cars had left. The sidewalk was taped off, and two policemen were chatting casually next to a metallic body bag. A co-worker this morning said it couldn't have been the body, that he overheard the policemen casually chatting about some whatsapp messages, that they couldn't just let the body there, that the bag surely contained something else.
I'm sure it was the body, and it also seemed jarring how unceremoniously they left the body in the street for hours, how little ritual or respect there was in this death. As I'm writing this I also realize how I thought this, yet I did not even stop to say a little prayer in silence. I turned around the corner and thought "oh I have to make a stop at Mercadona before heading home" and that was the end of it.
I guess it's never late to think a little prayer, even at the middle of my work day. Your death has not passed unnoticed, may your soul rest in peace.