Us

 

A Man floats gently in the toy aisle, hanged with balloons.

Shortly afterwards, a little girl passes by unnoticing, smoking her cigarette. Her mother not far behind, holding a bloody sack of roiling bile and fat to her breast. The hanging man sways and softly rustles his balloons.

Skimming by on an old, worn bike, once painted blue comes a large toothed, large pored child with coffee streaks on his two front-most teeth. He pays little attention to the man’s high fashion sense. The child focuses not on the hanged man’s fine suit, but on handles of his bicycle.

Hairless, a tiny boy with acetic features and a long nose, the tip of which is flattened on a bright screen, wanders past the dead man, thinking far more about birds and candy than about the brown leather shoes on his large, dignified feet.

Oppressive in nature, the massive feet of this boy’s father intimidate and eclipse the pride of the hanged man’s shoes.  At least this hard-browed, bearded figure did not outdo the hanged man’s tie, as he had fastened it to his neck nearly as cozily and prestigiously as the balloons to which he was tied.

Lethargically an ancient, splotched woman meanders past, her mind brittle and riddled with holes. She searched for a gift most likely. She poured the entirely of her limited focus into it, missing out on seeing the glimmer of the hanged man’s silver watch. His father’s watch. A watch he had carried with him always.

Eardrums being pounded by violent noises and harsh twangs, a pockmarked and greasy-lipped teenager waddles past. He is fat, and thus does not respect the way that the hanged man’s jacket sculpts his chest and shoulders. The boy wears a hat, covering what is likely unkempt hair. The man's hair is superbly combed, disturbed only by the slight static of his balloons.

So the hanged man hangs unseen by his world. Maybe in life he felt ignored and unneeded, perhaps he had even felt abysmally alone and feared the permanence of his solitude. If he had, then in death he faced no change. If when he lived he believed that his death would result in no ripples then he was right. Alone he lived and alone he hung. Even after his peacockery and his flamboyant dress. His greatest and last effort, in vain.