The god guy. Sounds like me.
He looks at me like I'm valuable and worthless all at once.
When I don't react to his question, he says, "The man who stood on Third Avenue last week, shouting about the second coming. That was you, correct?"
Did I do that? Every morning, my memories lay like scattered pieces of a disjointed mosaic. I'm forced to put together moments I'm not even sure exist.
The hallucinations I experience are difficult to put into words. They're a bit like memories. Only, some of them haven't seemed to happen, yet. Or, if they did, I can't remember them.
These days, there's a lot that I can't remember, and that's the problem. I know there's something I should be doing. Some great task with a reward at the end. In my visions, I have seen a woman with jet-black hair and round, chocolate eyes. Her lips are plump and red like raspberries. She is warm and inviting, but as soon as I get close, she disappears.
Is she someone I should be searching for? Maybe. But it's not like I've been given a set of instructions. As soon as I come to my senses, I just try to block everything out.
I'm not saying anything. I can barely even breathe. I'm just sitting on the street corner in an old sleeping bag like an idiot, and I'm trying to form a coherent sentence.
He forms one for me instead. "Oh, come now. I'm not your father. You can talk to me. What exactly happened on Third Avenue?"
My father. That bastard doesn't need to be brought up now. Not here.
"I'm not well," I admit.
I gave my father a pass nearly a decade ago. Right after college, I decided it was in my best interest not to dwell on hard times. I wanted an opportunity to move forward with my life.
Yet, somehow I ended up here, sleeping on the streets with nothing to my name. I just can't remember how...
I feel ashamed and a little bit frantic, but I manage to calm myself down.
I wonder how much I gave away about my condition.
"Third Avenue? Shit. I must have missed my dose again," I say.
"Your dose," he says.
I grind my teeth. "Are people saying things about me? Is someone looking for me?"
The pills. They helped me breathe easier, but there's no point in breathing if you're not actually living. I don't take those things anymore.
"Calm down," he says. "I'm only trying to understand."
This man must have witnessed one of my routine public outbursts.
The man kneels down to my level and smiles like a fox. His grin soon fades, but his eyes are obsessively looking for a way in. I must not let him near me.
"I'm curious," he mutters. "No, I'm fascinated. What made you jump onto that statue? I was told you actually stood on the back of its wings."
The statue stands in the middle of the financial district. It's nearly twenty-three feet tall and six feet wide. Made from the finest concrete I have ever seen. An unknown citizen, an artist that disappeared completely, left the monolith. The city somehow allowed the statue to stay on account of "good fortune." The story has always fascina
ted me.
There are more of them, too. Three in total, but one went missing years ago.
It was an odd choice to put an angel in the middle of the financial district. Maybe that's what set me off. The idea that money can somehow equate to real value or some level of intrinsic good is astonishing. It seems so wrong.
Every day, financial advisors, gurus, and overall scam artists pass by its breathtakingly large wings. Tourists stop to take selfies.
I've always assumed the statue is much more than a national landmark.
"It's the only angel left in the entire city," I say. "People are making a mockery of its existence. Someone's got to do something about it."