A sack

Last week as I was driving down the main street of the small town where I live, I noticed a lump on the sidewalk. A man stood over the pile of what looked to be dirty rags and clothes, looking about as if hoping to find something to cover him; he used the workout jacket he wore.
I am using the term clothes loosely as it relates what I saw by the elongated strips of soiled fabric stretching out from one end of the pile.
It wasn't until I caught sight of the other end that I knew it was the body of a man. His hair a matted mess of muddy brown. His cheeks gaunt.  Mouth agape. He looked as though he simply gave up while walking down the street. Thin to the point of being emaciated. Filthy enough his entire being seemed covered in oil as if he'd been exposed to a spill.
And dead.
The man, who I elevated to samaritan, was now on his cell phone. he was clean-shaven dressed in expensive brand name exercise wear (sans matching jacket), and clearly distraught. Why?
One reason, I was sure was that while he was trying to get help, four people walked straight by him and the body without a pause, not even a blink of an eye.
I remained at the red light, waiting for it to turn, noticing the occupants, of the cars around me, were all texting.
By the time it did, and the walk against the light people cleared the intersection (it's a thing here, you wait until the light turns and you slowly walk across the intersection blocking traffic), the emergency responders arrived.

I could hear sirens as I drove through the intersection. Police and Ambulance.

And still, no other person paid them any mind.

What have we become?

In a test of character, the participant is asked: who are you when nobody is looking?

Jesus or God or what-the-heck-ever you believe in,  is not our judge, we are our own. Our consciousness and subconsciousness build our character as we live our lives.
We can text, blog, post, and browse but all of these combined do not connect us with life or a solution. They pull us away and eventually dull humanity.

This death was not even counted in our daily body count (yes, we have one in the small town I live) as it is made up of the traffic, gang, and just plain violent acts with few natural causes listed.

The dead man was homeless and while I do think we need to abolish this state of life, I am more sickened by the growing lack of compassion.
The samaritan severed as a ray of hope. An ever so faint one. But sometimes that's all we get.

What would it take for someone to be walking along and be unable to even sit down, to just drop like a sack and die? Where did life fail him? When did it?
Not even a place to shower, clean his clothes, or get a bite, a single bite to eat.
A sack of dead.
Nothingness.