A Character Study in Vignette Form

I make arrangements with the stones - chunks of concrete and gravel and bits of crumbling asphalt. I find good pieces everywhere. I have a tip for you: you can never tell where you might find just the right piece of concrete with just the right mix and pattern of gravel. You would think the big piles of demolition rubble would be the best places to look, but you would be wrong. Those are full of big slabs on top, each strung with rusted rebar pretending to protect, but actually crushing, the really good and unique bits of rock beneath their unrelenting, but unstable carapace. Stay away from them. Instead, search the emptiness between the mounds. Look down and closely in those places the little desert rats rush across only at night (I've seen them!) in a hurry to get from one seedy bush to another. There you will find those lonely and beautiful gems: chunks of concrete just the right size for your arrangement.

I've lived across from the apartment building for several months now, longer than I've lived anywhere else. Nobody bothers me here because it's far from anything except twisty strands of scowling suburban boxes for the storing of one, or more than one, family. These families don't know me, they don't know each other, they don't leave food out: even leftover food. I have to travel pretty far everyday down to the back of a big strip mall to get what I need: water, food, a newspaper, and something interesting to think about. I use this stuff to live and to create my arrangement, which is more important than living.

The apartment across the street from my lean-to cave on the empty lot stores many people. Some are families, but a lot of the mini-boxes store only one person. I see them come and go in patterns and see their feet and cars etch invisible channels in the asphalt (the black crumbles make stark counterpoints to my concrete gems). I like one of them, one of the stored people, that is. I don't whether it is a man or woman but I don't think it is a boy or a girl; it wouldn't be living alone if it was so young. I like this one because it doesn't always have the same pattern. It goes from its box in the morning, but never at the same time and sometimes I never see it go out. Sometimes I even think it sees me.

(Although that is probably not true since I am pretty sure I am transparent, or at least translucent. I have lived in many places where people almost trip over me all day long. Sometimes they step over me but that is because I take care to leave my clothes spread out a little so they will at least see a bit or maybe even a pile of fabric.)

I will make part of my arrangement about this person. But what should I use? Should I use concrete sparingly or add more natural rock? Should I try to increase the ratio between asphalt and concrete and natural stone (this will be harder because it's difficult to find aesthetic pieces of asphalt since the dgesof the road are too perfectly stitched with their gutters)?