Jour, the Homeless Man Who Lived Like a Stray Dog

I lay in my room, staring at the ceiling...

Thinking about my helplessness and how I had lost everything in the blink of an eye.

Including the job that had supported me.

After losing everything, I sat there and remembered all the effort I had put in as a child at school.

I remembered my mother’s advice and warnings when I was young.

“Study hard so you can get a job! Otherwise, you’ll end up broke.”

Well, I’m broke now, Mom!

What a waste of all those years of hard work at school and university.

And now, everything was over.

I had no job.

No income.

And, even worse, I was dealing with one disaster after another, with no end in sight.

The Coronusians.

The attacks.

The nightmares.

In despair, I lay back on the bed, my dark eyes staring into nothingness.

Tears gathered in them as I faced my helplessness.

I didn’t know how any of this would end.

Would I remain helpless forever?

Would this suffering continue forever?

In a sorrowful, mournful voice, Yassin said to me,

“Don’t lose hope, sir...”

Then he tightened his grip around my hand and reassured me.

“Everything will get better.”

But the tears began streaming down my face, and I broke down crying from the sheer feeling of being lost.

“If only I knew what was going to happen,” I told Yassin. “Then I would feel more at ease!”

Yassin replied with absolute certainty.

“What is going to happen will be for the best, sir!! I promise...”

When Yassin saw how miserable I was, he reminded me of my friend who had become homeless.

I thought the memory had simply come to me on its own...

But it had actually been Yassin’s doing.

I decided to gather my strength, get up, visit him, ask for his advice, and tell him that I had finally reached the end of my patience.

Dijour...

He was my closest friend.

He had lost his apartment some time ago because he could no longer afford the rent.

It seemed that all of us children of the nineties were somehow terribly unlucky.

Now he lived on the streets.

But apparently, he had grown accustomed to his new life.

When he lost everything, I gave him a tent and whatever he needed to spend the night.

Yet when I looked into his eyes, I saw a kind of contentment and acceptance I had never seen before.

I would have been devastated if I had lost my home.

But not Dijour.

He had adapted to his new life quickly and accepted the twists and turns of life exactly as they came.

I went to visit him in the park that had become his home.

We talked for a long time, and I was extremely emotional.

We sat on the ground beside his blue tent, talking as I complained...

And complained...

...

Dijour fell silent.

He looked deeply into my eyes, knowing that something was wrong.

For so much to come pouring out of me, there had to be something serious behind it.

Then he said, placing his hand on the wound I had been bleeding and hurting from:

“I’ve never seen you this lost before.”

He knew that my patience had finally run out.

I exchanged a long look with him.

Sadness and despair were unmistakable in my eyes.

Dijour and I had always communicated through our eyes.

We could understand things through a look alone, sometimes reaching an understanding that came even before words.

And he understood from my eyes that this was different from my previous breakdowns.

This wasn’t some minor problem.

It wasn’t something he could deal with by making light of it, as he usually did, or by simplifying it.

Dijour fell silent.

Then his eyes suddenly caught a bird flying swiftly between us.

He watched it disappear.

His gaze then shifted toward the trees swaying in the wind.

He stared at them thoughtfully, contemplating everything I had told him.

Questions were beginning to show clearly on his face.

And I kept looking at him as though he were my salvation.

My rescuer from all my troubles.

He had always seemed to have an answer to my problems, thanks to the secrets he kept hidden from me.

And speaking of his way of thinking...

A man like Dijour followed a philosophy somewhat similar to Cynicism.

A philosophy that taught him not to care about his fate or what might happen to him.

Instead, he simply lived each day with whatever it brought him.

God provides.

God is always in control of sustenance.

That was what Dijour believed.

But unlike the ancient Cynics, he didn’t eat from garbage bins or survive on scraps.

Dignity and self-respect were the dividing line between him and those who followed that philosophy.

The similarity was in the way he lived simply, almost like a stray dog.

A happy, free dog that knew neither pain nor anxiety and never worried about what tomorrow might bring.

Whenever a misfortune came his way, his response was always the same:

“I don’t care.”

And then he would laugh at his own misfortune.

But I cared about him.

A lot.

When I learned that he was struggling with hunger rather than asking others for food, I began secretly taking care of him.

Every day, without my family knowing, I brought him enough food to get by.

He accepted it as help from a friend...

Never as charity.

“Listen. I’ll ask around for you...”

Dijour said calmly.

My eyes lit up with relief.

We had finally reached that point.

I knew the rules.

I wasn’t allowed to ask him about his secrets.

I couldn’t ask who those wise people he consulted were.

I couldn’t ask what they were.

Or what connection they had with him.

All I knew was that he would always disappear...

And return with profound wisdom.

That was why I was so happy that he was taking my problem seriously.

Things were getting worse.

And there was no patience left inside me.

I was satisfied.

I knew there was nothing left for me to do but wait.

I left him beside his tent.

Then I looked at the tent, feeling sorry for the life he had been forced into.

I wished I could provide him with more.

Before leaving, I looked at him sadly one last time.

He gave me a gentle push, completely content with his life, and said:

“Go home and remember, Shin!

Just ignore your misfortune.

That’s all there is to it...

Until I come back with your answer.”