Status: outline/draft

Julius takes a bus into the city and arrives on a warm early-summer night at 1am with a duffle bag and a backpack and no plans other than dying. He walks down the street until he gets tired and comes across a city park. It's a long narrow park shaped like a triangle with the tip cut off. There are benches there and it's warm and he lays down on his backpack and hugs his duffle bag to his chest and listens to the wind in the trees and the infrequent passing of cars, and falls asleep. He sleeps better than he has in months.

The day after next, he starts to feel the effects of sleeping on a park bench two nights in a row, and even moreso feeling the effects of being off his daily IV drip. That night he lays down in the grass instead of on his bench, and feels himself fading fast. Near dawn, he awakes from deep sleep and feels the pit of death begins to open beneath him. It's time. The City feels his presence and approaches, hovering over his form, it says hello. He weakly smiles and says hi back, and The City, having talked with The Barista at this point about mortality and the human desire to experience the world and make a mark, feels that it's wrong for this boy to die so young. The City descends into his form and bolsters him, anchoring him to the edges of the pit of void beneath him. Strengthened, but still ill, he stands up. He puts on his backpack, and walks away into the city. No matter where he goes, that pit follows him, and The City keeps a firm grip on it's edges, holding him up.

He has some money, he has his meds, and he's carrying everything he needs on his shoulders. Its warm in the night and during the day he wanders the city, wanders into coffee shops to take advantage of the AC and the outlets, wanders into small shops to browse and be glared at by suspicious shop owners. One such shop belongs to Gershom. He walks up and down the isles three times, something new catching his eye each time he walked past. he stops in front of the relatively small pile of books, picks up one on the history of something obscure, and settles with it in the armchair in the back of the store. After a couple minutes of reading, the quiet, the smell of old electronics and dust and plants, and the surprisingly comfy chair lull him to sleep.

He spends a couple hours there, reading and napping, until the Glo arrives at 3:30 to work and man the counter. They strike up conversation, he tells her about himself, she asks if he has a place to say, and he says something about the nice park benches over on east ave. She says that maybe he can stay here, she can ask Greshom.