The Preacher

He was sitting on a broken, graffiti covered bench, a bible clutched in his hand. He was discussing God with everyone though no one stopped to listen. It was preaching to the indifferent but preaching just the same.

He wore a torn and tattered t-shirt, which may have been blue once upon a time, with the words Jesus Saves written in a childish scrawl across the back. His jeans were tattered and had been patched so many times that little of the original material remained. They ended two inches short of his sock less ankles exposing dirty skin and the scars of countless mosquito bites. Old-fashioned canvas deck shoes covered his feet, the laces were missing, and the tongues flopped about like the tongues on two old hound dogs.

He had a tattoo on one arm, a cross with a crown of thorns on the top and a serpent wrapped around the base. Where the other arm should have been was an empty sleeve a reminder of the price he paid in some forgotten war. His hair was a tangled mess, a rat's nest of twigs and leaves. His nose had been broken once and leaned to the right like an old weathered picket fence. His remaining teeth were yellowed from years of chewing tobacco and smoking cigarettes.

That being said it was his eyes that captured an observer's attention. They were a deep soul searching blue. Lit by the roaring fire of his faith, they seemed to cry out to passing crowd "I may be down but I have yet to be beaten."