WIP: Que El Mundo Esperes

"Que el mundo esperes!” was his favourite thing to say. “Let the world wait. Let them all wait.”
Martino sat on his haunches on street corners in front of the bodega, spewing his druggie philosophy to anyone who passed by. Rushing rushin rushing! He’d say. Always rushing me. “Que el mundo esperes! Me Oyen?” His bloodshot eyes wandered to the sky and he gave a crooked grin.
Like clockwork people would begin to shoo him away at dusk. “Time to go home, hombre.” The shopkeepers shook the brooms as if Martino was nothing more than dust or cobwebs.
“Rushing! Always rushing me!” And he would leave. But one day, one day Martino took his last drink, his last hit, his last theory on life hit the pavement hard and he stopped. “What am I doing?” he said to me. I was buying cigarettes from the window. I hadn’t even noticed the man next to me. No one notices the bums anymore.
“I said, what am I doing? I need to be doing something better than this.” I clutched my matches close to my chest and watched Martino pour his whiskey into the gutter. He turned to me, cocked his head. “You’re 2K’s little girl, right? Yes?” I nodded and saw, for a brief moment, clarity in his eyes.
“Senorita, el dinero.” The clerk startled me and I handled a five dollar bill.
“Let all the world stop now!” Martino had wandered out into the street.
“Hey…Hey! You’re going to get hit.” I waved away the change and ran to the edge of the sidewalk. Martino! Marty, get back onto the sidewalk!”
“Que el mundo esperes! There is so much more than this!” he yelled one last time and raised his arms up wide.

With a squeal of tires the world stopped right there, right before my eyes.