08/13/2025: Weird Eternal Punishment in Bushwick

Today was a normal day. Just another day at Captions writing code and having heated discussions with colleagues as usual, got a burrito for lunch as usual. Feeling particularly questioning of reality today after seeing my brother on Monday and having a really deep long catchup.

Anyways, I was on my way home from work, it was just getting dark, I just got out of the subway at Morgan ave, and I saw big pile of trash just down the street from our apartment on McKibbin. In the center of the trash was a big mirror. We’ve been looking for furniture so I was like, “Oh Sweet A Mirror If It’s Not Covered In Poop Maybe I Should Keep It.” Trash was strewn everywhere, basically as if a bomb had gone off in the center of the trash pile. That’s normal, completely unfazed.

I approached the trash pile, leaned in close to inspect this rare stooping find. That’s when I saw it. My heart literally skipped a beat.

Right in the center of the trash pile there was a man, very tattered and dirty in appearance, crouched down on the ground, holding a piece of burning garbage in his hand, using the meager flame as a lightsource as he rifled through the pile of trash for anything worth selling/recycling. Turns out the the trash was strewn everywhere in the street due to his frantic scavenging.

It was dark. No flashlight. No phone. No light at all except a piece of burning plastic he held about two inches from his face, two inches from piece after piece of human refuse.

I see unhoused individuals in NYC all the time. I’ve seen messed up human suffering throughout the USA since I moved back here. But this guy was beyond rock bottom, beyond human suffering. This seemed like some kind of eternal punishment from a Buddhist text. Doomed to filter through human waste by the light of burning plastic for an eternity.

I continued my walk home.

The next morning, I saw this trash pile + evidence of where he was.