Time heals all wounds. People say that. I don't know why. It's not true or anything. Like, not remotely. I'll tell you about that one guy. Good looking guy, looked like he had his stuff together. Atleast as much as possible for a homeless vagrant. His clothes was neat and tidy, not clean or anything but organized. Like he could put down his backpack and walk into just about any kind of out door job and not be out of place. His pack for that matter was an old military pack in good condition and well cared for. His hair though unwashed and slightly shaggy was still lingered in the shape of a working mans cut. In fact I was going to introduce myself and when I got closer I got to see the thing about him. The wound. A horrific wound. Apparently he had gotten a cut on the side of his head. Around the hair line. Unwashed hair is itchy, so he had scratched at it. Because of course he did. So the cut stayed open and it got infected. The first time I saw it the infection, a bright red dagger of infected tissue, was reaching down from the hair line and across the guys cheek. So seeing this I turned around and walked away. Time passes by and I don't forget about this guy. I mean, how can I? He's a living breathing metaphor. More time passes and I get sick myself. A silly little head cold that I figured would just go away if I waited long enough. A head cold that erupted and sent me, in panic, to the emergency room. Nothing like bleeding out your ear to make you take a cold seriously. Of course things didn't go great at the ER. As soon as I stepped into the door the Doctor had decided I was just trying to scam some opiate derived pain medication out of him. So I left and hospital security decided to help me out the door. I objected to that level of rudeness. By the way, never headbutt someone when you have a head cold. Normally the force of the blow is absorbed into the sinus. However when the sinus is jammed full of fluid it instead transfers the force of the blow throughout the entire interior of the skull. Terrible idea. Don't do it. Anyway, the next day I hit up a nice drop in center. If you don't know what a drop in center is, it's a place where they give out watery coffee and stale donuts. I noticed the guy with the head wound. I tried to ignore him. But that day they had a doctor visiting that drop in center and so I decided to go see him. Within five minutes I had a nice big bottle of oral antibiotics. I was vastly thankful for this level of care. I paused a moment as I attempted to think of a way to thank this doctor. "Hey, how would you like to save someone's life?" I asked him. In thanks I gave him the wounded man. I saw him a few times after that. No longer swollen the once infected tissue was now sunken, permanently etched into his face. What was worse was the rest of it though. His confused and frightened eyes and ever more dismal appearance suggested that... Suggested that of course carrying a seething rotting wound on the side of your head is going to damage your brain. Because of course it does. How could it not?