The Man in the Laundromat
We lived in a small town.
The kind where everyone knows your business — unless you’re invisible.
The laundromat at the end of our street was open 24 hours.
Warm detergent. Wet socks. Buzzing lights.
That’s where Eli stayed.
Late twenties.
Tattered hoodie.
Everything he owned in a plastic bag and torn backpack.
He always slept curled up near the soda machine.
But what I remember most wasn’t how thin he was.
It was how carefully he looked at the world — like it had already disappointed him more than once.
He never asked for anything.
Never even looked up.
But my mom?
She walked straight to him every year.
She knelt down so she wasn’t towering over him.
Slid the bag across the floor.
“Hey,” she’d say. “I brought you dinner.”
He always answered the same way.
“Thank you, ma’am… you don’t have to.”
And she always replied:
“I know. But I want to.”
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