Crumbly bits away

He stood still on a street that ran through the center of the town he once called home. His eye had caught something glimmer off of a storefront window, begging him to pause. He obliged and saw only his own reflection. He found very little to report at the sight of himself. A shave should come soon. And a jog. New pants someday, though no time soon. He looked whole. One being, one body, one whole person standing and staring at himself in the window of an old time photo shop. His head sat on his shoulders which led right down the torso and legs. He could hardly believe it all standing right there before him, under him, on him. Just him.

He took a last glance and moved on. As he walked the image of his whole dissipated. He could hardly remember how his neck curved out and met back up to some sort of bone and something else went down into a thing and then who knows what came after that. And his head could have been everywhere and nowhere for all he knew. It took a hefty anchor to plant that head down to a single spot. Arms, heart, legs: they all drifted their own ways. Left toe could well be gone, but he opted not to check. Every part of him went their own way.

He stopped halfway down the block and looked at the window of a shop filled with junk disguised as antiques. There again, he stood in the reflection. All of him. He held the sight of himself for a minute just to make sure it was no ruse of supernatural window-walkers. He moved on. And away it all went again.

Two blocks later and away from the stores, he found a bench just off of an expanse of grass. He sat and gazed off past the buildings, people, cars, and other assorted clutter. He wondered what glue had held him together long enough to see what he had seen in those windows. He realized he had travelled a long way to come back here. He had left bits along the way. To the south he had left knees, a hunchback, and some pride. To the east some fingers, toes, and tongue. From where he sat he remembered leaving, perhaps very near this bench he had left a shoulder and a thigh.

All corners had been left some heart. They could all keep their parts of heart he had left, he thought. Much as it pained him not to have that whole, he knew that leaving the pieces would always bring him back to the south, to the east, to the west. He stood up again and started away from the bench.

As he walked on, he felt it almost time to leave this place again. It had been home but he had other former homes and new one on the way. He had some little parts left to leave with others as he went, though he wondered how much was really left to leave. Very soon he could give all and fade away. He just had to wait and see. What a day that would be. Staring into the window of a candy shop, taffy being pulled as there he stood, just fading away.