Her wiry hair blows in the wind as she shuffles down the street at six in the morning as she yells at the air before her. She has little control over the arguments she has as the voices in her head have a tendency to make her appear as if she is angry.
On nights that I hand out food, you have to actually ask her to take the boxed dinners, yogurt, bread and veggies. She has never asked me for a handout... she simply survives in a lonely motel room.
When I ask about her family I have to listen intently as she tells me between fits of what appear to be someone else talking to her - someone I can't hear, but she hears as loud as a freight train roaring past her at 100 miles per hour. She says, "I have a daughter, a daughter, a daughter who lives, who lives in Florida." I smile, "That's awesome, how is she?" She responds, "Good, good, she's real good - but, she's good."
"Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair." R. D. Laing