Walking in NYC, along Times Square, a bit beyond it in fact, a young man is sitting on a stoop. He is slender in build, black jeans tight enough to lower his sperm count grip his legs. He looks depressed. Even the blonde frosted tips of his hair seem just a little down, in spite of them being strictly gelled skywards.

He is smoking a cigarette.

Three other youngsters walk down the sidewalk by where he sits. They are obviously from out of town, and the polar opposite of him in mood, visible disposition, and number. They move to a point in front of him, below and awning, and gawk at a series of terrible billboard ads, ads so bad that they decide to photograph them.

The ads are trying to sell advertising space, and there are 6 of them arranged in a column, right on top of each other. Two men stand there, trying their hardest to look cool, giving the three, and the seated fourth a forced thumbs up. They wear suits, and are the pinnacle for the uncool cool.

The three stand there for a while, fumbling with camera phones in order to try and record their find. The fourth sits, still smoking, gazing off into the world, through buildings, through cars. He is elsewhere, not tethered to what's going on near him. For an instant, however, he snaps back.

"You want to hear something fucked up?", he says in a puff of smoke.

The trio ignores him, save for one. He knows he shouldn't listen, but he also is infinitely curious about people. He asks the infamous and sometimes fatal, "What?"

"My friend...", he says struggling a little bit to get through this, "My friend just fell out of a fourth story window. They just carted him away. He was bad man, really bad. He had a cut from here to here." He says this as he runs his finger from his temple all the way down to his sternum.

"That's terrible. Is he going to be ok?"

"They took him away, he's there right now. I hope so."

"How're you doing?"

"He's probably going to make it..."

What does one say to someone who just saw his friend mangled and isn't sure if he will live? What can one say? All you can do is listen sometimes, I would suppose, and hope for the best.

"Well man, stay strong. You've got to be there for him."

And with that, the trio walked away to leave the man to his cancer and his thoughts. The one that spoke to him looked back and wondered if he had done the right thing, if he could do anything else for this man. He looked back and noted that this man was similar to himself in age, general appearence, and disposition. He played it cool with the other two as they walked on, as if the man were crazy and questioned why he would just start talking to someone.

He joked, but really he knew why the man had spoke, why anyone talks to strangers.

Sometimes, you just have to get it off your chest.

-ccm