I woke up in Room 306 at two in the afternoon. I don't know how I fell asleep. On the nightstand there was an empty beer can, an empty whiskey bottle, and my phone—no missed calls.

I got up. I showered. I put on yesterday's clothes. I needed to go for a walk.

I went to the port area—where I used to work, eight months ago, before the concrete mixer got sold and the equipment lease payments started drying up. Now I'm just a middle-aged man who walks around the docks because walking is the only thing I know how to do when I don't know what to do.

Next to an abandoned warehouse at the port, I saw a man. He was sitting on a cardboard box with a paper cup in front of him. I didn't give him money—I didn't have any money either. But I stopped. He looked up and said one word in English: "You too?"

I didn't know what he meant. "Here," he said. He pointed at the port, at the empty warehouse, at himself. I understood. I nodded.

That night, I saw him again. Outside a 24-hour convenience store. He was going through the trash. I bought a coffee, bought an extra one, and handed it to him. He said thank you.

His name was Amir. Or at least that's what I learned later. That night, I just knew he was someone else who was here. At the port. At night. Going through trash.

We started a strange arrangement. Not friends—we could barely communicate. His English had maybe ten words. I don't speak Arabic. But we met at the same place every day—outside the convenience store or next to the abandoned warehouse. I'd buy an extra coffee or a sandwich. He'd show me things—a特别 leaf, a strangely shaped rock, a crushed candy wrapper.

I started noticing things I hadn't noticed before. The port wasn't just him and me. There was a homeless man with mental illness who appeared at the end of the dock at three every afternoon. A former convict who had set up a tent in the abandoned warehouse. An old man who slept in his car in the convenience store parking lot. These people didn't know each other, or if they did, they didn't talk. But they were all in the same place. Driven to the same place by the same thing.

I didn't know what to call that thing. Unemployment. Poverty. Recession. I didn't know. I just knew that every morning when I woke up in Room 306, I didn't know what the day was for.

One day, I didn't see Amir. At the convenience store. At the port. He wasn't there. I thought he was just late. I bought an extra coffee, put it on the counter at the store, and asked the clerk if he'd seen a Middle Eastern man. The clerk shrugged.

The next day, Amir still wasn't there. I went to the Middle Eastern district—I had never been there before. People at the mosque said Amir wasn't there. "He moved?" I asked. Nobody knew. "He went back?" Nobody knew.

I went back to the port and searched around the abandoned warehouse. On the spot where the cardboard box used to be, I found something—a plastic bottle cap with a simple drawing on it in black marker. A circle with a line through it.

I don't know what it means. A smiley face? A sun? A coin?

I put the cap in my pocket.

The third month after Amir disappeared, I received my last equipment lease payment. I knew that starting next month, I would have nothing.

I went to the port one last time. The abandoned warehouse was the same. The parking lot was the same. The mentally ill man was still at the end of the dock at three in the afternoon.

But everything was different—not because something had happened, but because nothing had happened.

I sat on the edge of the dock with my legs hanging above the water. I took the plastic bottle cap out and put it on my knee. I don't know what it means. But I know Amir left something behind. Not the cap. The drawing. The circle and the line.

A smiley face? A sun? A coin?

I put the cap in my pocket, stood up, and patted the dust off my pants. I walked back to the motel. Room 306 was still there. The beer can was still there. The whiskey bottle was still there.

Nothing was different. Nothing had changed.

I opened the door. I closed it behind me. I sat down on the bed. I picked up the phone. No missed calls.

Tomorrow, I would wake up. Shower. Put on yesterday's clothes. Go for a walk.

Nothing different. Nothing at all.