Maybe.

Consider the man sitting on the doorstep of the bank, in early November, on a cold, wet Friday evening. He’s wearing a fairly expensive suit, it’s raining, and approximately six o’clock. I feel like that man.
    He possibly went to post an envelope with money to be transferred to his wife - probably ex-wife’s - account. Imagine if, while doing this his phone and his wallet, his house and car keys dropped slowly into the deposit box, and cannot be reached. He was probably on his way home from work to the flat he‘d lived in for a short time since the separation from his wife. He would soon discover his situation to be hopeless, and in doing so, give up. This is the point where he sits down on the steps leading up to the bank. Only slightly out of the rain. As he sat, he might have witnessed a young man - possibly nineteen, or twenty - wander by on his phone. The boy would talk animatedly to a friend on the other end of the line, while sucking on a cigarette like a child with a dummy. An uncharacteristic smile would appear across the face of this stranded man. He’s not a sad man, just sorry for his own situation.
    The smile wouldn’t last as long as hope should. A young couple might walk by, intoxicated by love. He’d watch them slowly gander by his spot on the stairs; every so often, they would stop. He’d whisper something in her ear, she’d smile in a shy, modest way, and they’d kiss. The man watching from the stairs would feel emptiness synonymous with loneliness in the pit of his stomach. At the point where they were out of sight, he’d possibly be more alone than before.
    The next vision to walk by the man and his step could be old, ragged, and might stop on the bottom step, to sit down near the man wearing a frown at the top. An old man wearing a tattered suit, deep-set eyes and a cold, hard frown, perhaps? The old man would look up at this stranger and smile.

Maybe.

Maybe not.


And me? I feel like a man on a top step.