Hanging out at the Kaiser optometry reception room, waiting to get my first pair of glasses to make the streets of San Francisco safer. A likely homeless man pulling a big suitcase with a compromised wheel arrived. He had a large bandage covering his right eye and was engaged in a dialog with someone invisible. He took an interest in photos of events from San Francisco past on the walls. He walked up to the photo that showed the Giants in the '60s and started commenting on it. "That man looks like my uncle Robert, but uncle Robert couldn't deal with people, he could only deal with things. I don’t think he would be there.” |
When he seemed to be ready to move again I decided to go talk to him to see if he would stand in one place for a while. We engaged in a lighthearted exchange about the picture of the stadium, and then I asked him about his bandaged eye.
"So what happened to your eye”?
"Thanks for asking," he said. “They tried to kill me before and they will try again, but I made it out of there with just a hit in the eye."
"Kill you"? I asked. "Why is someone trying to kill you”?
"They keep trying because I have something they want.”
"What is it?” I ask.
The man went to his suitcase and pulled out a worn out fabric bag with a zipper. He opened the zipper and put his hand inside the bag. He pulled out his hand and opened his fist. Sitting in his palm was a cobalt blue cube. It was beautiful, translucent, with one side slightly beveled. It could have been glass or a stone or even some good looking plastic, hard to tell.
"What about this cube makes someone want to kill you"? I asked.
He leaned towards me whispering: "Salesforce Tower will not fly without it".
I showed enthusiastic appreciation for being shown the artifact and then excused myself since my glasses were ready. As I was walking out down the hallway I noticed there was a security guard not far behind me headed my way. I turned to another hallway, and then another. The guard seemed to be following me. I lost him in the elevator, but I couldn’t help but think … now I know … and they know I know...